fantasy and political organization

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Mon Jun 4 21:17:07 PDT 2001



>. . . I think of the lingering protectionism, a species of
>> > >Americanism, in the labor movement. Is this a
>> > >mystical consciousness, with its racial and
>> > >nationalistic overtones--a fantasy obscuring real
>> > >common interests and thwarting organization?
>>
> > And it's a stubborn fantasy. . . .
>
>What you call protectionism is self-defense.
>"Internationalism" is the fantasy. That
>everyone else is dreaming is your dream.
>Hope they're sweet.
>
>mbs

What was originally "self-defense" for the USA has become offensive since the U.S. assumption of imperial power.

Engels wrote in the Preface for the 1888 English edition pamphlet of "On the Question of Free Trade":

***** It may now be 15 years ago, I traveled in a railway carriage with an intelligent Glasgow merchant, interested probably in the iron trade. Talking abut America, he treated me to the old Free Trade lubrications:

"Was it not inconceivable that a nation of sharp businessmen like the Americans should pay tribute to indigenous ironmasters and manufacturers, when they could buy the same, if not a better article, ever so much cheaper in this country?"

And then he gave me examples as to how much the Americans taxed themselves in order to enrich a few greedy ironmasters.

"Well," I replied, "I think there is another side to the question. You know that in coal, waterpower, iron, and other ores, cheap food, homegrown cotton, and other raw materials, America has resources and advantages unequalled by any European country; and that these resources cannot be fully developed except by America becoming a manufacturing country. You will admit, too, that nowadays a, great nation like the Americans' cannot exist on agriculture alone; that would be tantamount to a condemnation to permanent barbarism and inferiority; no great nation can live, in our age, without manufactures of her own. Well, then, if America must become a manufacturing country, and if she has every chance of not only succeeding but even outstripping her rivals, there are two ways open to her: either to carry on for, let us say, 50 years under Free Trade an extremely expensive competitive war against English manufactures that have got nearly a hundred years start; or else to shut out, by protective duties, English manufactures for, say, 25 years, with the almost absolute certainty that at the end of the 25 years she will be able to hold her own in the open market of the world. Which of the two will be the cheapest and the shortest? That is the question. If you want to go from Glasgow to London, you take the parliamentary train at a penny a mile and travel at the rate of 12 miles an hour. But you do not; your time is too valuable, you take the express, pay twopence a mile and do 40 miles an hour. Very well, the Americans prefer to pay express fare and to go express speed."

My Scotch Free Trade had not a word in reply.

Protection beings a means of artificially manufacturing manufacturers, may, therefore, appear useful not only to an incompletely developed capitalist class still struggling with feudalism; it may also give a life to the rising capitalist class of a country which, like America, has never known feudalism, but which has arrived at that stage of development where the passage from agriculture to manufactures becomes a necessity. America, placed in that situation, decided in favor of protection. Since that decision was carried out, the five and 20 years of which I spoke to my fellow traveller have about passed and, if I was not wrong, protection ought to have done its task for America, and ought to be now becoming a nuisance.

That has been my opinion for some time. Nearly two years ago, I said to a protectionist American:

"I am convinced that if America goes in for Free Trade, she will in 10 years have beaten England in the market of the world."

<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848-ft/1888-ft.htm> *****

And it has. The USA gained industrial & military supremacy & has decided to advocate free trade. Protectionism has done its job for the nation & turned it into an empire.

While underdeveloped nations still have something to gain from protectionism, America, Europe, & Japan don't.

Yoshie



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