MacCoy, a much better developed argument. Still, it is wanting:
1.)The strange thing is that Republicans were not eager to pursue intervention in Vietnam. General McArthur, before he died, made the statement that Vietnam was not within our "defense perimeter", and Goldwater was dubious about the value of the intervention. In '64, the anti- war vote was for Goldwater, who said that we should either win it or get out, and indicated that if he thought it would be protracted he might well get out;
2.) Keynesian pump- priming did not depend on the spending being military.Any large scale initiatives that allowed for increased deficit spending would have done, and after his defeat of Goldwater, Johnson was able to get his way to an amazing degree;
3.) It is simply true that free trade is economic orthodoxy, and therefore support requires no ulterior motives;
4.) We had a free hand in Western Europe, to a large extent; we do not in Mexico. We couldn't reform their economy if we wanted to, and there is a limit to the utility of aid in a quasi- socialist kleptocracy.
An over- arching economic idea is that of specialization: the Third World should do what it currently does best (i.e., make cheap textiles), and we should do what we do best (e.g., make computer chips). Capitalism always causes dislocations and requires adjustment, free trade or not, but with such a low rate of unemployment, it looks like we are still handling them. |
