Refuting the Global Mandarins
buchanan.org
by Patrick J. Buchanan
The Wall Street Journal
August 22, 2000
Reading "Buchanan Has It Backwards on Globalization" by General William Odom (editorial page, Aug. 11), now adjunct professor at Yale, an idea commends itself: Perhaps the general might want to audit the freshman course in economic history this fall, if there is yet time to sign up.
Prof. Odom writes that all nations surrender their sovereignty when they enter alliances and trade treaties. Nonsense. Sovereignty is retained as long as the nation retains the freedom and power to dissolve the alliance or treaty. NATO is a temporary coalition from which we have the power to withdraw, while the European Union looks to be forever.
"[W]hen the U.S. had fewer limits on its sovereignty it was poorer," writes Prof. Odom. "In the 1930s it had few treaty commitments, having rejected the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations. Congress even passed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs to keep out foreign trade. And what rewards did all these exercises of sovereignty give the American worker? The worst economic depression of the century followed by the bloodiest war in history."
Let me try to sort out this rag-bag of non sequiturs. The Senate rejected Versailles in 1919. Harding took power in 1921 on a promise to "prosper America first." He cut Wilson's wartime income tax rate of 63% back to 25% and, with Fordney- McCumber, doubled tariff rates. Result: The Roaring Twenties. Growth hit 7% a year, fastest in history; and ten years later Versailles America was producing 42% of the world's manufactures, an all-time record.
As for the Smoot-Hawley myth, Prof. Odom should put in a call to Milton Friedman. When Smoot-Hawley passed, imports were only 4% of GDP; and two-thirds came in free. Perhaps Prof. Odom can explain how a marginal tax hike, on 1.3% of GDP, caused a 46% contraction of the U.S. economy, 25% unemployment, and a wipeout of 85% of stock values?
The cause of the depression was massive credit expansion by the Fed, creating a market bubble that, punctured in 1929, wiped out a third of the U.S. money supply. With America in shock from this loss of blood, a pair of chiropractors named Hoover and Roosevelt prescribed a "cure" of huge tax hikes and sweeping regulations. Smoot and Hawley were scapegoats, lynched by New Deal court historians to cover up FDR's complicity. Their tariff did not even pass until eight months after the 1929 Crash.
As for the bloodiest war in history, it was launched by Adolf Hitler. The wisest decision ever made by the Senate was to refuse to commit American blood and treasure to enforce this Carthaginian peace, imposed on the German people at bayonet-point in violation of Wilson's 14-points and solemn pledges.
On NATO and the U.S. military presence in Europe, the general and I agreed, up to 1989. But with the Cold War over and the Soviet Empire stone cold dead, how is America made safer by an endless commitment to go to war with a nuclear- armed Russia, to defend Bialystok from Belarus?
Bring the troops home from Europe, and we shall be relieved of an economic and military burden, and we can restore our traditional freedom of action to intervene, or not, as we decide; and not to have war imposed upon us because of some 50- year-old tripwire put down by Dean Acheson or John Foster Dulles. Why not let our rich and sassy friends in Europe carry the hod a while? General Eisenhower was no isolationist, yet he pressed JFK to pursue exactly this course as far back as 1961.
Prof. Odom rejoices that countries are lining up to sign on to globalization. Why shouldn't they? To them it means an open door to the greatest market on earth, and U.S. capital pouring into their countries to build new factories to replace plants shutting down across the U.S.
Our merchandise trade deficit is near 5% of GDP; it has crossed the $450 billion mark. We are following faithfully the course pursued by all the great empires of history: consuming more than we produce; selling off our patrimony to finance the good times. Carpe diem remains the road to hell for nations as well as individuals.
Prof. Odom calls me a Jeffersonian agrarian. Has he read my book? My ideas are rooted in the economic nationalism of Washington, Hamilton, the Madison of the Tariff of 1816, Henry Clay, Friedrich List, Lincoln and the Republicans who, from 1865 to 1914, took the U.S. from half of Britain's manufacturing power to more than double her power -- a 50-year period where growth rates averaged 4%, with bursts under McKinley up to 7%. They all put America first.
As Hamilton insisted, U.S. trade policy should be designed to ensure the highest standard of living on earth for the American people, and the economic independence of the nation, so that, if need be, America could stand alone. Only thus could we stay out of Europe's wars.
"Independence Forever?" was Adams's deathbed toast. Men will die for the "ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods," not for some New World Order created of, by, and for the greedy global mandarins who endlessly lust after America's wealth and power.
Patrick J. Buchanan
McLean, Va. |
