🧵I just listened to another economist bemoan the end of the global free system that the United States has helped to build over eighty years. I'm not a fan of tariffs and the jury is still out as to whether the Trump administration's approach will work. But let's be honest. 1/6
The idea that we have lived in an open global marketplace is bizarre to say the least, considering the amount of regulatory and state intervention we have witnessed over the years. Communist China in particular has been predatory mercantilist in its trade policy for decades. 2/6
This global "free fair trade" was neither free nor fair. It was predatory on the part of Beijing while US corporations allowed themselves to be extorted for intellectual property in exchange for labor arbitrage and market access. All the while, America's heartland was gutted.3/6
I write this because recently I drove across several states and saw first-hand the devastation and disrepair all around me, with fellow Americans working low-paying service jobs with now prospects that things will get better anytime soon. I can't tell you how angry it made me.4/6
I've had enough of pious sermons about the "global marketplace," and how "export-driven modernization" will make democracies out of dictatorships because, you know, prosperity, the middle class, etc. The so-called globalization was corporate greed masquerading as an ideology. 5/6
It is simply unacceptable that US corporations would feel no sense of responsibility of any kind for the welfare of the citizens of the very country that gave rise to their success. This is not about liberal or conservative politics or world view-it's about right or wrong. 6/6
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