Category: Democratic Capitalism

Why is America divided?

America is divided on economics, and specifically on the efficacy of tariffs. Whereas successful businesses love Free Trade, struggling businesses want Tariffs.

East and West coasts vs the Middle

The software companies don’t need tariffs to survive. The US has managed to convince the world that US software giants have a natural right to exists and dominate the whole world. They don’t even need to pay all US taxes, having convinced places like Ireland to be a home for their international sales. This means that the giant companies can “legitimately” pay Irish taxes instead of US taxes.

US banks don’t need tariffs to survive. Yet when they sneeze the whole world catches cold. They are sitting pretty, with the US dollar the international reserve currency. This may change with the advances in BRICS.

US Banks and software companies bring lots of employment and profits to the east coast and the west coast of the US. They are doing well, and want the current situation to continue. The middle of the US is not doing so well, but Donald Trump offers a different way forward, even though there are aspects of Trump’s approach to politics and economics is challenging. Yet there is no indication that the Democrat Presidential candidate has anything to say that will bridge the underlying problem.

Here is what Politico has to say about Kamala Harris’ position on tariffs:

The vice president’s biggest challenge may be defining her policies. And many industrial workers, who will be key to her chances across the Midwest, have already expressed dismay with the economy — even if they’ve been beneficiaries of the Biden-Harris industrial policy push.

No cut-through tariffs policy under Kamala Harris.

History of Tariffs

Tariffs can be considered to have been previously introduced to offset an inherent competitive advantage in the exporting nation. This still continues to be the case. Yet now we realize that tariffs are not a one-way street to success. If they are set too high, this can embed business inefficiency, lead to noncompetitive wage rates, and unnecessarily result in paying higher prices for all goods and services.

Contrary to current economic thinking, tariffs are not a “curse word.” Indeed, the clear rationale for tariffs in the 21st century is to attempt to achieve a rational trade-off between lower prices and “full employment.”

A truly rational trade policy would set a moderate level of tariffs for those sectors of the economy that the government of the nation decides it wants to keep and is in danger of losing. Such a policy would not create a trade war, especially since no nation in the post-Trump world will be able to resist its compelling logic.

Modest Tariffs are needed

Imposing a moderate level of tariffs, even on ALL goods entering a country, should not result in a trade war. Yet even without such a policy we have already got a trade war. Why?

Trump is loved by some farmers. Democrats should be asking why this is the case and offering something similar. Are they? Not as far as I can tell from Australia.

The Democratic leadership just wants to prosecute Donald Trump and cast his supporters as lacking in intelligence. Yet as soon as the software giants and computer hardware suppliers are in economic trouble they want to impose very heavy punitive tariffs on China. Is this rational? It certainly doesn’t help geographically middle America.

In agriculture, it is easy for poverty to overwhelm ordinary producers. A modest tariff will hold back competition, at least sufficiently to allow these producers to survive.

Every country should be reasonably self-sufficient in agriculture, particularly in those countries where agriculture is the main source of employment. If rich countries can allow the farmers in such a countries to thrive, the whole country could be on a path to economic success. Tariffs are the means to achieve this.

A 20% tariff should be available to every industry sector that want this level of protection. The US should encourage every nation to do the same, not try to bully them to remove all tariffs, even ones as low as 20%.

Globalization needs tariffs

Every country needs a diverse economy, including in the Computer-space, to flourish in this very competitive world.

Tariffs can help start-up and establish companies to thrive. If the WTO continues to demonize tariffs and “protectionism” when it will give nations more economic freedom to act, then perhaps the best approach is to demonize the WTO and anyone else who prefers an ideological position to a well argued alternative position.

We will see!

Global 20 per cent Tariffs – not a scary prospect

Reserve Bank modelling indicated that, if there were global 20 per cent tariffs on EVERYTHING,  the effect on Australia would be minimal. Clearly, tariffs are not a curse, or evil, or even a serious problem; and there are significant upsides to revisiting tariffs.

Reserve Bank of Australia

A recent freedom of information request resulted in the release of Reserve Bank modelling that concluded that, if there were a regime where every country slapped a 20 per cent tariff on every other country (global 20 per cent tariffs), the effect on the $A was not significant (it could appreciate or depreciate – implying it was a line ball). The effect on unemployment would be minimal – a 0.25% increase, and the effect on GDP would also be minimal – it would shrink by 1% by 2021.

This is not a proposition that is ever likely to been fairly considered by Australian Treasury, since it is ideologically committed to unrestrained free trade, as the relevant Australian government ministers make clear at every possible moment. However, it is a proposition that I presented for discussion in January 2018.

Consequences of Global 20 per cent Tariffs

While Reserve Bank modelling shows that global 20 per cent tariffs could be easily accommodated in Australia, such a change to the global tariff regime is also likely to have positive impacts on the body politic, which is the major interest of this blog. Two of these impacts are considered under the following headings:

  1. Reduced top-level income.
  2. Higher wages and more jobs.

Both of these movements in income will have the effect of reducing inequality across the Australian landscape. The question is whether this will be good for Australia as a whole. I would say “Yes,” but that is a personal and political judgment, not an economic one.

A regime recommending global 20 per cent tariffs would provide an economic model that aims to provide jobs for persons of every skill and education level, instead of the current model that leads to a winner-takes-all economy. Indeed, all western countries have a system in which some segments are able to compete very effectively, but with the rest of the population being left relatively worse off. This is source of current trend towards more inequality – it is not caused by a wicked capitalist plot. The source of this problem is the dominant economic theory, supported by major parties in most Western countries. (In Australia the strongest supporter of this economic theory was Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a lifetime beneficiary of this approach. While it was not this Achilles Heel that brought him down, it did not help his cause, even though he was oblivious to this fact. The king is “dead;” long live the (new) king!)

Reducing Top-Level Income

Without being privy to the details behind the Reserve Bank modelling, one can be sure that the knock on GDP would primarily come from a decline in incomes of those who are currently winners in the current regime. These are globally competitive Australian firms, who would lose part of their first-mover-advantage. Since we do not have many of those, the impact would be relatively small. It would also impact on CEO salaries, since company boards would no longer have to select a CEO who can be the “best in the world,” in order to compete successfully with ever other CEO in the same industry. Competition would more likely to focus on finding a CEO who can compete within Australia. (Finding the “best CEO” is not always the best outcome, with Telstra’s and AGL’s unhappy experience being useful pointers in that regard.) This change would also have the socially desirable outcome of reducing inequality.

Higher Wages and more Jobs

Australia (and other Western nations obsessed with free trade) are currently following a view of an ideal world in which every country aims to do only those things that it is best equipped to do. Theoretically, a country does not grow its own food if someone is able to do it better; it does not make its own goods if someone else is able to make them cheaper; it even doesn’t educate its own people if they can get a better education elsewhere. It sells off all its businesses to the highest overseas bidder, ignoring the long-term consequences of this action.

Under this scenario, the government of each country allows the global market to have free play, based on the argument that, under this system, the collective entire global system is better off, in the (faint) hope that this will then trickle down to individuals in each and every country. At the same time, economists pay no attention to need for each nation to provide jobs for its own people, despite their respective education and skill levels. The world is considered to be a single pudding, with everyone having an equal chance to get their own piece (whether small or large).

The real world is not like this, thank God. In the real world most governments are responsible to their own people, not to some super-intelligent bureaucracy. (The EU is a notable exception, giving extraordinary powers to un-elected bureaucrats – a living lesson in the folly of delegating policy to a “super-intelligent” bureaucracy.)

The simple fact is providing jobs in a diversity of industries, businesses and government services provides better opportunities for everyone to get a job that suits his or her own talents. It is no good talking about Australia becoming a “knowledge economy” – not everyone has the talent to  be a part of this new dreamland economy that “our betters” are planning for us.

While there is a place for a safety net, wages are best set as a function of the demand for workers, so that when there are more jobs than workers, wages will rise for those workers. Australians certainly do not want to repeat the situation in France where restaurateurs are short of workers and want to employ migrants who currently do not have legal rights to work, rather than attracting more entrants into their industry by increasing the wages of their own workers!

Any reasonable and competent government would work towards ensuring that a virtuous situation of jobs for all continues to lift the income of lower paid workers, through education, and improved skills at work.

Efficiency & Global 20 per cent Tariffs

There is a lot of nonsense spoken about the improvement of efficiency as a result of removing tariffs from Australian manufacturing. The plan fact is that the combination of tariff cuts and the currency revaluation were so severe they led to the smashing of Australian manufacturing. The car industry is a case in point. The EU have a 15 per cent tariff regime for cars; Australian leaders thought that a 5 per cent tariff was so good it reeked of “economic virtue.” Yet the EU still has a car industry, despite competition from Asia. Add to this the failure to effectively manage the $A during a period of over-valuation of the $A against the $US, which meant an effective 40% negative tariff working against Australian manufacturing. We congratulated ourselves on our economic management while “Rome burned!”

Innovation

Australia’s political leaders hope that “innovation” will be Australia’s economic saviour in the coming uncertain times. Having smashed manufacturing in a search for impossible to achieve domestic efficiency – sufficient to overcome cheaper labour overseas and larger domestic markets – these leaders need to find something new.

There is some hope of this front. Australia’s mining industry is a world leader, and has generated sufficient profits to be able to fund continuous innovation. Australia’s innovation potential has delivered three world-competitive health product and service companies – CSL, Cochlear and ResMed. It has also delivered four world-class players in Information Technology.

In this way, we can see innovation has delivered good returns for those who are able to be central players in these fields. The profits generated mean that further innovations are able to investigated and pursued if they look promising. The same profits are also able to fund above average salaries.

Yet innovation of this kind is of little direct assistance to those who are not in the top 10% of ability and advantage. It is too easy for the government to just sit back and admire the success of those firms and sectors. The real challenge for the nation’s government is to aid the remaining 90% to achieve success appropriate to their own natural abilities.

Given the natural creativeness of Australians, and their aspirations for a “better” life, all the Australian government has to do is ensure that Australian firms can earn sufficient profit to fund their own innovation programmes. Yet it cannot do this by crushing employee wages and thereby helping firms to increase their own profits by that route. It must somehow increase the potential for higher margins between revenue and costs.

Insofar as governments have any role in this, the first step is to decide whether it wants to establish conditions that serve primarily to increase efficiency of firms – by making all businesses compete on a “level playing field” with the rest of the world – or by providing local firms with a small advantage over global competitors.

Australia had tried the “efficiency route” and delivered a very unpleasant smelling result. It is about time it tried the “innovation route” and then to see what this will deliver.

Global 20 per cent Tariffs & a Level Playing Field

There is no such thing as a “level playing field.” Each country is different, and the pursuit of a level playing field will just mean progressively lower wages for everyone except the most successful of our fellows. This is because of the current world surplus of labour; this means global capital can always seek out the lowest wage employee that can do the job that it wants to have done. Ironically, this is the course of action required by governance conventions – boards have little choice in this matter.

The current WTO objective of “lifting all boats” by lowering all tariffs to zero rating is entirely misconceived. Rather, this strategy will trap developing nations in a permanent dependency on the West. It is something that China will never countenance, nor should any nation, whether developed or developing.

A regime with a target of global 20 per cent tariffs would give emerging industries in developing and developed countries a chance to find a modest level of support so that they can find their feet. It never needs to be reduced below 20 per cent, unless there really is a compelling case for goods to be 20 per cent cheaper. What would be the argument for that? The wealthy getting luxury goods cheaper?

Conclusion

It is cringe-worthy for economists to cite 1930s protectionism as if it provided the evidence for embracing free trade. Don’t they know that the 1930s were a very difficult period because of the crash of the world economies from over-active speculative activities in the 1920s?  A similar thing happened in 2007 and 2008, and the worldwide rejection of protectionism did little to make recovery faster than in the 1930s. Food for thought, eh?

Don’t economists know that America’s economic powerhouse was established in the 19th century, building its strength behind tariff walls? Don’t they know that the world became a much more prosperous place at the same time as protectionist regimes were in place in most of the nations of the world, namely, in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s?

Rather than protectionism being ridiculous, as opponents of Donald Trump seem to think, the arguments presented here are just standard economic principles. Unfortunately, free trade advocates  have stopped thinking from first principles, and have adopted a convenient, if bogus, theory.

If economists did a bit more original research, as well as looking at history, they would realise that an approach that led to global 20 per cent tariffs would benefit all nations, and certainly “lift the boats” of all developing nations. All that is required is for national economic leaders to seize the moment and the opportunity and argue the case cogently.

Argentina’s Economic Malaise

Argentina’s economic malaise is almost entirely due to blindly accepting prepared economic prescriptions, rather than finding its own way forward. It started with socialism and then accepting Ricardo’s theory about Comparative Advantage, leading to the collapse of a once thriving economy.

Argentina is in the unique position as a country that had achieved advanced development in the early 20th century but experienced a reversal. This has inspired an enormous wealth of literature and diverse analysis on the causes of this decline, but there is little evidence that this analysis has come close to discovering the reason for Argentina’s economic malaise.

Argentina’s Economic Malaise & comparative advantage

The history of Argentina’s economic health is littered with pointers to the unhealthy consequences of the “advice” of economists.

Economic historians point out the Argentina’s economic advantages, placing it squarely in the real of Ricardo’s “comparative advantage.” Here is a summary presented in Wikipedia:

Argentina possesses definite comparative advantages in agriculture, as the country is endowed with a vast amount of highly fertile land. Between 1860 and 1930, exploitation of the rich land of the pampas strongly pushed economic growth. During the first three decades of the 20th century, Argentina outgrew Canada and Australia in population, total income, and per capita income. By 1913, Argentina was the world’s 10th wealthiest state per capita.

Ignoring the economists’ mantra that each country should concentrate of its own comparative advantage, from 1930 to 1976, the various governments of successfully diversified the nation’s economy by engaging in a process of industrialization, behind a protective tariff regime.

To the amazement of economists and economic historians, “Despite this [Argentina’s protectionist regime], up until 1962 the Argentine per capita GDP was higher than of Austria, Italy, Japan and of its former colonial master, Spain.” So one economic historian amazingly concluded, “Beginning in the 1930s, however, the Argentine economy deteriorated notably.”

So one can see, even though economic policies that do not respect Ricardo’s theory can serve a country very well, most economists are so blind they cannot see what stares them in the face.

What they cannot or will not see is that no country is better off in the long term by concentrating only on their strengths. Only a diverse economy can work for everyone, not just those who are occupied in the “advantaged field.”

Argentina’s Economic Malaise – Peronism

Part of coup that seized power in 1943, Juan Perón became Minister of Labour. Campaigning among workers with promises of land, higher wages, and social security, he won a decisive victory in the 1946 presidential elections. Under Perón, the number of unionized workers expanded as he helped to establish the powerful General Confederation of Labor.  This sowed the seeds for the later humiliation of Argentina’s economy.

Beginning in 1947, Perón took a leftward shift in economic policy, first breaking up with the “Catholic nationalism” movement. This led to gradual state control of the economy, reflected in the increase in state-owned property,  control of rents and prices. The expansive macroeconomic policy, which aimed at the redistribution of wealth and the increase of spending to finance populist policies, led to inflation.[95]

Thus it is with socialism everywhere! The Whitlam experiment is Australia’s practical demonstration, with unsustainable higher wages, out of control inflation, and leading (socialist) economists saying, “There is nothing to see here – all is OK.”

In the 1950s and part of the 1960s, the country had a slow rate of growth in line with most Latin American countries. Stagnation prevailed during this period, and the economy often found itself contracting, mostly the result of union strife.[50]  Is this not the story of Australia after Whitlam, until Labor’s Hawke and Keating brought it to an end?

The story of Argentina’s economic malaise can be repeated, with a varied story line in many countries.

Argentina’s Economic Malaise – After Peron

Arturo Frondizi won the 1958 presidential election in a landslide. He failed to restore prosperity to the nation. He was replaced in another coup in 1966, which sought to restore national prosperity, beginning with more state control of money, wages and prices.

After 1966, in a radical departure from past policies, no doubt encouraged by the “smartest economic minds,” the Ministry of Economy announced a programme to reduce rising inflation while promoting competition, efficiency, and foreign investment. The anti-inflation programme focused on controlling nominal wages and salaries. It had striking benefits, with inflation decreasing sharply, decreasing from an annual rate of about 30% in 1965–67 to 7.6% in 1969. Unemployment remained low, but real wages fell, as they always will once Comparative Advantage theory is allowed to take control of economic thinking.

By 1970, the authorities were no longer capable of maintaining wage restraints, leading to a wage-price spiral. The lower real wages that are inevitable under the new economic orthodoxy are completely unacceptable to the majority of the people. In a democracy there can be only one outcome – an change of government.

Despair over the incompetent economic management of the post-Peronist period led to the election of the Peronist, Hector Cámpora in 1973 and then Perón himself soon after. When he died in 1974, he was succeeded by his wife, until she was deposed in a military coup in 1976.

The new Perónist regime was characterized by an expansive monetary policy, which resulted in an uncontrolled rise in the level of inflation. Here we have the same problems being repeated again – when will socialists ever learn?

Comparative Advantage – Continuing Problems

The dominance of the economic theory of Comparative Advantage led to a process of continuous decline. Just how the Argentinian economists thought that Argentina could compete with the USA with its own comparative advantages, which are numerous, is incomprehensible. Holding up manufacturing firms via state support just was not an effective band-aid solution. Argentina’s industrialization fell to levels maintained in the 1940. So much for a diversified economy, full employment, high wages, and political stability.

Argentina’s Economic Malaise – Today

The socialists were thrown out in 2015 and Mauricio Macri became president. At least Macri rejected socialist lies, but nothing would be fixed since he had swallowed economists’ Free Trade Lies. When he tried to implement the economists’ prescription to get Argentina back on its feet, he failed and Argentina’s Economic malaise continues today.

Yet economists still think that the solution to Argentina’s economic problems is more of the same, with the Financial Times completely perplexed that Macri’s presidency has not solved Argentina’s problems.

Argentina has embraced economic orthodoxy before, only to be blindsided by financial markets. This week’s mounting panic, which has seen the peso plummet and prompted the central bank to raise interest rates to 60 per cent, is just the latest example, prompting many to wonder: what has President Mauricio Macri got wrong?

The Financial Times cannot accept that the problem is in the economic model that it pushes every day of the week. Instead, it comes up with the lame excuse that one answer is “poor communication.” Actually, it is the only answer that it is willing to offer.

The same article cites an Argentinian economist, who says that there is no explanation for the current crisis.

“There is no logical explanation for what is happening,” said Christian Buteler, an Argentine economist, who called on the authorities to explain this “alarming” situation that is “completely out of control”.

The article concludes with argument from another Argentinian (capitalist) economist, reminiscent of arguments that I heard from (socialist) economists during the Whitlam era, “There is nothing to see here – all is OK.”

“[The problem is small] compared to the size of the market fear,” he says, arguing that the financing gap was small for Argentina’s $545bn economy.

Capitalist economists seem to think that ordinary workers in developed nations should accept ever falling wages and less secure employment. If challenged, they say that automation is the problem and will be increasingly the problem. Yet this is another lie. National states coped with the automation of industrial processes, but they will never be able to cope the with automation of other process if the real economic levels are handed over to global corporations in a fit of ideological blindness.

Globalised Capitalism will kill Democracy

Globalised Capitalism will kill Democracy. This could not be clearer in the United Kingdom, where a majority of young people between 18 and 24 put capitalism at the centre of their public policy concerns, and communism at the bottom.

18-24 years olds in UK worry about Capitalism

Globalised Capitalism

The underlying reason for these concerns is obvious. Governments around the world have surrendered economic control of their nations to the ideal of globalised capitalism and its free trade handmaiden. They have forgotten that governments are elected to look after the interests of their own people, and that trans-national corporations can NEVER do that job.

In a sense, this transformation in thinking is a tremendous victory for UK economists. They have taught the doctrine of comparative advantage for 200 years. Now everyone believes them, despite the fact that getting some goods 20% cheaper means widespread under-employment, lower wages for ordinary workers, and a major loss in economic diversity for each nation!

The world of democratic capitalism is already beginning to be weakened by this economic ideology. Governments no longer feel that they can protect the jobs of their own people, but they must change their own economy to be able to compete on a level playing field with everyone else’s economy. The fact that $20 hour will never be able to compete with $20 a day never seems to enter their collective (ideologically blinded) heads.

The arrogance behind this economic thinking knows no bounds. Those promoting this ideology seem to think that those trained and inculcated in the West are so much smarter than those in low-income countries that, of course, the West will have the “smarter and well paid jobs” and the more ordinary jobs can be done by “lesser mortals.” Grow up! The world has changed! The West has always had its own share of “lesser mortals.” They represent the majority of the population of every country. They also represent the majority of voters, and if something is not done, capitalism will be thrown out at the ballot box by those who are willing to clutch at the straw of socialism and even communism.

As recently reported in The Times, an historian warned about the growing influence of communist thinking in British universities:

A leading historian has warned against the moral relativism promoted at some universities after a Marxist student claimed on the BBC that communism only failed in the Soviet Union because it did not have the “chance to develop”.

The article goes on to say that communism is a poison for the people, not its salvation:

Most historians accept that tens of millions of people died in forced collectivisations and famines during the decades after the Russian communists took power in 1917. Stalin’s Great Purge in the late 1930s is thought to have claimed more than a million lives.

On the other hand, one could say that globalised capitalism is poison for most developing nations. Making cheap goods for the West is not the way to develop the economy. At best, it will make a few capitalists in these countries rich, but they are unlikely to spend their new-found wealth in their own country. What is needed is a way to create a new middle class who will spend their money in their own country. This can best be done by ensuring new small businesses can thrive and make profits.

Only protectionism can help developing countries to truly develop. They may need protection from nations which already have a first-mover-advantage for the rest of the 21st century.  So what? If more people are locally employed, why quibble about imported goods being 20% dearer?

Alternatives to Globalised Capitalism

There are only two viable alternatives to the current dominant model of Globalised Capitalism:

  1. Communism of the Chinese style, which exploits the free trade policies of the rest of the world, while protecting and enhancing its own businesses and trade. This brings with it the “thought-control” of communist ideology and the inevitable excesses from not having a democratic government.
  2. Democratic Capitalism, where the interests of the citizens of each nation are put ahead of ideological principles, whether those of communism, socialism or the poison of unrestrained free trade.

Not Everyone is Aspirational

Each national economy is driven forward by an aspirational minority, but not everyone aspires to a “higher economic life.”

Aspiration drives economic growth

The hope that hard work will be exceptionally rewarded is a major driver in capitalism. It results in innovative products being introduced to the market and costs being reduced for existing products and services.

The higher income achieved by the aspirational urge results in more money being spent on all sorts of goods and services, which generates more income for everyone, including those who are not aspirational.

Everyone needs to work

The current frivolous discussion of a Basic Income denies the human need for a level of self-sufficiency and a sense of self-worth.

This means that redistribution of income should not be the primary goal of a democratic society. Rather, it should be creating the structures whereby everyone can get a job, as it says in this song, “Root Hog, or Die.”

“Big pig or little pig, Root Hog, or Die.” Meaning, “Rich or poor, if you don’t work, you don’t eat; you have to take care of yourself, because nobody else will take care of you.”

Ever-growing welfare is not the way to build a cohesive society.

Non-Aspirational are valuable

There are many jobs in society for those who don’t aspire to be innovators and leaders. What a harsh society we would live in if everyone desperately wanted to be its leader.

Non-aspirational members of the work force can include almost every trade and profession. It is not just made up of those who do minimum wage jobs.

Despite this, most Western countries are doing their best to rid their economies of jobs for skilled non-aspirational workers, by moving jobs overseas to the countries who can offer those jobs at a lower rate of pay.

We need an economic balance

Economists, who should know better, seem to think that the world is just one big pudding, and ignore national borders and human history in their idealist search for a “better world,” being one in which everything is as cheap as it can be.

They do not realise, even though they should, that this just takes power away from democratic governments and give it global corporations.

Fortunately, the world’s voting public is waking up to the false path on which economists have led us.

A better economic balance is coming. It will start with fiddling at the fringes, with local suppliers being favoured for government purchases. It will continue with the re-instatement of tariffs in the developed world. It will end with national governments in the emerging world increasing minimum wages.

Higher Minimum Wages in the Developing World

Higher Minimum Wages in the developing world will increase prosperity everywhere.

G20 & WTO should lead

The G20 and the WTO have dropped the ball on trade. They should be taking the lead in “forcing” downtrodden nations go for higher minimum wages. But they don’t – the G20 and WTO just hand all such matters over to the leaders of global industries, aka “the market.”

While increased trade has resulted in some improvement in living standards in some developing nations, in general the gap between the developing world and the rest has not narrowed very much, especially if you leave China, Taiwan and South Korea out of the picture. The difference in those places is that the leaders of these nations didn’t believe the more trade would be enough: they also decided to control the situation more tightly.

These two “organizations” congratulate themselves on having done a good job in increasing the standard of living in the developing world.

They congratulate themselves too much. China has been the biggest beneficiary from free trade with the West. They have done this by keeping much of their own protective regime in place, and closely managing their own economy vis-à-vis the rest of the world. They call this “communism with Chinese characteristics.” There is no way that the Chinese will put themselves in the hands of global capital, but this exactly what the G20 and the WTO are advocating. At the same time they take much of the credit for the improvement in China’s economic situation. Well, good for them! I hope it keep them happy at night, as their own constituents lose their own standard of living at the same time.

Mexico needs a higher Minimum Wages

Take Mexico as an example. Many commentators believe that Mexico has benefited from NAFTA. Certainly the Mexican government believes this to be the case. However, Mexican workers receive $15 day, whereas their wage competitors in the USA receive $15 hour. This is not because Mexican workers are only one eighth as productive as US domiciled workers, as someone has ridiculously suggested.

Don’t expect global corporations to encourage developing nations to introduce higher minimum wages. They love low wages. They won’t fix them, and indeed, they can’t. To pay more for labor than the market requires would be a breach of their governance standards.

WTO could support Higher Minimum Wages

A real fix would be for the G20 and the WTO to introduce a rule that says something like this: “Country based tariffs can be introduced where the effective minimum wage built into the goods being imported is less than half the effective minimum wage in the importing country.”

Taking Mexico as an example, if higher minimum wages were introduced the Mexican government would be compelled to introduce a minimum wage that was equal to half the effective minimum wage in the USA. Such an action would see real benefits being achieved from that nation’s increased export activity.

Nevertheless, while the G20 will have to backtrack on its impotent rage against Trump’s trade rhetoric following his election, it will do nothing of any use in fixing the trade problems of the world. Apparently, the G20 leaders do not understand that crushing the wages of ordinary workers actually reduces national wealth. They do not understand how global corporations work, and that they are not a force for improving the wages of ordinary workers. Perhaps they should read George Cooper’s Money, Blood & Revolution.

Media Bias – The Challengers don’t like to be Challenged

Media bias reflects the fact that most of the major media organizations have their own agenda. It starts with unrestrained free trade and ends in the hope that everyone will benefit. Donald Trump has pricked their balloon, and they don’t like it. In fact, they are highly embarrassed that their complicity in the current economic malaise is being exposed by an “outsider.”

Media Bias – A Western Pattern

I listen to PBS, France24 & the Australian ABC. Also I read the (UK) Financial Times, the Australian Fairfax press and the Australian. All except for the later, which has a reasonably 2-sided presentation, treat Donald Trump as a punching bag (especially the government funded national broadcaster, “our ABC”). None of them like it when Donald Trump punches back. I say, it is about time that the media is held accountable for their biased reporting.

Media bias is obvious to any objective observer. As an historian, I know that history is a matter of selection – what will be included – what will be excluded. We know what the media are including. Today I listened to the NewsHour “debate” between Mark Shields and David Brooks. As today’s show demonstrates, the two contributors and the host were keen to highlight anything that puts Donald Trump in a bad light. Here are just a few examples:

  • “Not enough positions with confirmable candidates have been confirmed.” That is not Donald Trump’s fault. It reflects more directly on the action of Democratic Senators, not a failure on Donald Trump’s part. If the Democrats are holding up appointments (for good or spurious reasons), the delay cannot be put solely at Donald Trump’s feet, but that is what the 2 debaters and the host did today.
  • The disgraceful situation where leading figures in the intelligent community are openly passing on confidential information to press was not criticized once in this discussion. These leakers should be prosecuted as Obama tried to do with Snowden, and has done with Manning. Yet this was not mentioned as a caveat to the discussion on the “Russian situation.”
  • The implication that Trump is a boy in a man’s job, which came from Mark Shields, will be shown to be a nonsense. It is just out of the current Media Bias play-book. Rather than Donald Trump not being up to the job, he is willing to address the ridiculous situation when US workers on $7.50 and hour or more have to compete for their jobs with Mexican workers on $15 day, whereas neither the Democrats or the pre-Trump Republicans even thought this was an issue that could be addressed.
  • Trump was willing to bell the cat on the impossible situation in the West Bank, which cannot be solved via a 2-state solution (since that region has been permanently cantonized by settlements for over 20 years), despite official UN approval of this ridiculous approach. Diplomacy has failed the world here and also in Syria, with the attempt to replace a stable government with one that is likely to be led by Saudi-influenced Sunni radicals.

Where is the discussion of the breath of fresh air that Donald Trump has brought to such matters? Nowhere to be seen on PBS, France24, Aust ABC, Aust Fairfax or in the Financial Times. Apart from resistance to his necessary and economically compelling agenda, we just have complaints about Donald Trump pushing back against a constant media onslaught. Certainly the media do not want anything like a level playing field and are not willing to even think about the possibility of Media Bias from their own organizations.

End Media Bias for your own good

My advice to the so-called Main Stream Media, is “Grow up.” Learn from the election result. Donald Trump won the electoral college by a thumping majority. Surprise, surprise: the liberal elites lost the election. Their mutual love-in, led by Barack Obama and for which Hillary Clinton was their default candidate, which has seen ordinary working people lose their jobs while others earn an extraordinary rate of pay, has been dispatched by democratic forces.

In addition, we can say that the expectation of Mark Shields that Trump will lose electoral support is a dream. The US economy has already turned the corner, and that has been just on the anticipation that Trump will put his plans into operation. Just be aware that when the numbers on the economy come in at the end of this year, the media will change their clothes, because if they do not, they will be all out of job and new media will take the place of the current media.

Prosperity, Insecurity and Poverty

We live in a time of great prosperity, unparalleled plenty, variety, health and peace. We also live in a period of intense and global competition, where not one job has even a scrap of the security that a job might have had 50 years ago.

Unparalleled Prosperity, with increased Insecurity

We are more prosperous than ever before, but would any ordinary working person willingly accept that getting everything 20% cheaper is really worth the employment insecurity that the current free trade arrangements are causing? I doubt it.

Automation is NOT the problem

For those who argue that it is automation, not unrestrained free trade, that is causing increased employment insecurity, I say, “Balony!” I spent a large amount of my working life implementing automation, and it didn’t lead to widespread unemployment. That is because the governments of the world hadn’t yet handed over power to global corporations, via unrestrained free trade.

Prosperity provides an opportunity to fix poverty

We can use the world’s prosperity to lift nations out of poverty, via trade, but we have to do it differently. It is no good just using our prosperity to lift the incomes of the top 20%.

We have given up the opportunity that prosperity has provided, since the great democracies of the world have surrendered their authority and power to global corporations. Shame, shame and more shame upon them all.

How to fix

There is a fix. It is in the hands of voters. It is also in the hands of the world leaders, via the WTO. It is Donald Trump who has provided the catalyst. Those who condemn him are among the worst offenders in regard to causing the current malaise. So I support Trump’s abrupt and counter-cultural rhetoric! Shock, horror!

We will be the poorer if we don’t pick up the baton that he has placed in the next runner’s hand.

Steven Keen on Democracy and Capitalism

The radical Australian economist, Steven Keen, has somewhat surprisingly “come out” as an opponent of Free Trade, at least as currently practiced.

In an breakthrough interview published in The Epoch Times, Steven Keen explains how Donald Trump could revive American manufacturing. This article is tellingly entitled, “Why Free Trade Doesn’t Work for the Workers.”

Steven Keen argues Ricardo’s (1820) theory is flawed

Keen pointed out that the argument by classical economist David Ricardo (1772–1823) about wine and clothes involved the workers in one industry losing their jobs. Ricardo assumed, as do modern neoclassical economists, that workers in the losing industry can get a job in the winning industry. So it’s assuming full employment, everybody who wants a job gets a job, which is not the real world. And they also assume you can move resources from one industry into another. Certainly, workers can be retrained. While it takes time, it can be done.

Drawing an example from China, Keen noted that China now produces more of everything, and that it is not possible is turning a weaving machine into a steel furnace. And that’s why you have the rust-belt. In the case of China and the United States, the steel plants in the United States won’t become weaving machines; they just turn into rust. So what you have is absolute destruction of physical resources in one country. Or they ship the capital to the place where the low wage workers are, like China or Mexico, and what you get is a class redistribution of income. The workers in the developed country lose, the capitalists in that country gain.

Steven Keen argues that Free Trade gives Capitalists a “Free Kick”

Keen observes that in this scenario, capitalists in the developed country still own the machinery and employ people but in a different country and at lower wages. Then they sell the products back into the American markets at the same prices but at lower costs. So they gain, and the working class has to finance their consumption with increased levels of debt because they don’t have the income anymore. The workers in the developing country also gain, so it’s also a wealth transfer from the developed to the developing country.

Why BrExit “won” & why Trump won

Steven Keen comments that in a democracy you get to the point where the workers have lost so much because of globalization, they get sick and tired of hearing the fairy tale that they won’t suffer and that it’s all for their own good. And they look at their decayed streets and factories and dismal jobs and lower share of income, and they say: “You know what, I’m going to vote against this.” And that’s what we are seeing globally now with Trump and Brexit, this revolt against globalization and financialization. The absolute losers of all of this are the working class of the first world. The winners are the multinational corporations.

Welfare vs Work

In an interesting and perceptive comment on human nature, Steven Keen says that humans get their sense of self-worth by contributing to a community. If you are human and you are being paid for staying alive, you are not particularly happy about it, your sense of self-worth is pretty low. But if you have a job and can contribute to a community, that’s where your sense of self-worth is going to come from. All this welfare is replacing work which is the case in the rust-belt areas makes people angry and resentful. Their self-worth is challenged and they are not going to be happy with the establishment.

He believes that is why Trump has such an appeal, and they don’t care about him being politically incorrect. They like the fact he is like a human hand grenade. They threw the human hand grenade into Washington.

Automation

Getting closer to a nuanced view on automation than most commentators, Steven Keen begins by arguing that part of the motivation for American businesses to move production offshore was cheap labor. But with better and better robots, you can have machines you can retrain for different assembly processes. And you have 3-D printing turning up, which has become mainstream. So it means you can produce onshore without cheap labor. But it also means you can produce without labor at all.

Although he does not define what “a well-functioning human society” would look like, he thinks that in such a society producing without any labor at all would not be a problem. He believes that the problem in a neoclassical capitalist system is that the workers lose out because their only source of income is wages. If there is no need for wages anymore, you don’t have an income anymore.

My Response

Steven Keen’s analysis of the modern economic dilemma is first class, however he does not offer anything substantive in the way of a solution.

A declared opponent of “neoclassical economics,” Steven Keen is quite happy to make comments like, “In a neoclassical capitalist system [in this scenario] the workers lose out because their only source of income is wages.” However, when he goes on to say, “If there is no need for wages anymore, you don’t have an income anymore,” but “in a well-functioning human society, that wouldn’t be a problem.” In this he is contracting his own point that welfare-dependency is a self-defeating solution to current economic problems.

From the full text of this interview, we know that he is still an opponent of tariffs as a way of achieving balance within an economy, and still hankers after the socialist ideal of a world without artificial borders.

In this area, this site is closer to Donald Trump on the need for tariffs supporting national objectives. Nationalism is deeply rooted in human psychology (beginning with a mother’s care for her child). This cannot be claimed for internationalist objectives of Ricardo’s Free Trade ideology or Marxist ideology. While Keen sees the future as being “post capitalist,” I see the future being in capitalism being brought (again) under the control of national parliamentary democracy, thus reflecting the needs and interests of the people.

I am confident that Steven Keen would agree with me in the proposition that an objective of the political system should be to deliver a result that is in the interests of ordinary people (the top 1%ers are quite able to look after themselves). I am not so sure he would agree with me in seeing a nationalist capitalist system as the basis of that model. Time will tell on that point.

I promote Democratic Capitalism because I believe it will serve the majority of people quite well. Indeed, the current trend is in support of the principles of Democratic Capitalism. As evidence for this, I can cite Theresa May in the UK (“Democracy that works for everyone”), and Donald Trump in the USA (“Make America great again”).

Global Trade Reform

President Trump has created a catalyst for global trade reform. The USA could use this opportunity to implement reform via WTO that will work for both developed and developing nations.

The Problem with Global Trade

Even though the push towards globalization has done much to reduce poverty in those nations able to exploit the changes for the benefits of their own citizens, it has presented three easily identifiable problems;

  1. Zero tariffs do absolutely nothing to remove the first-mover-advantage of Western nations. Without tariff protections, developing nations are severely limited in their ability to develop diverse economies. Each nation should seek a diversified economy, despite the benefits of specialization. Providing a diversified economy is the only way in which a nation can utilize all the skills of all their people.
  2. Western nations are unable to provide sufficient work for ordinary workers in the face of very low wages that are being offered in developing nations. A skilled worker in the USA on $15 an hour cannot compete with a skilled worker in Mexico on $15 a day. It will never work out well for the ordinary workers of the West, who actually represent the majority of voters. (Elites: watch out, your day of reckoning has come!)
  3. Globalization has failed to deliver the real equalization of incomes between developed and developing nations that has been promised by its advocates. The pressure to keep wages down in developing nations is maintained by global corporations. They are only too willing to move operations from one country to another in search of the lowest possible cost of labor. Of course, they are only operating in the way the situation requires. If it is to be changed, it will have to be changed by changing the situation, not by requiring corporations to act in ways that conflict with their own charters.

Implementing Global Trade Reform

Having defined the problem with global trade, reform of its operation becomes self evident. Here is a simple two-part fix, which Donald Trump could initiate and virtually force the whole world to adopt.

  1. The WTO rules to be changed so that any nation can introduce and maintain a high level of tariff in order to offset an identified first-mover-advantage. It is suggested that a tariff of 25% would be a good starting point for a discussion on this aspect.
  2. The WTO rules to be changed so that any nation can implement a country-by-country tariff on goods coming from another country, where the minimum wage (actual or official) is less than 50% of the minimum wage of the importing country.

Only item 2 of this program for global trade reform really applies to the USA, and pending a WTO agreement, Donald Trump could implement that aspect immediately.

In regard to NAFTA, Mexico could be encouraged to raise the minimum wage in all factories exporting to the USA to 50% of the USA minimum wage.

Under these arrangements for global trade reform, the pressure to move work from nation to nation in the search for the lowest possible wage levels would come to an end. It would also end the waste of national resources that comes from starting a factory in one country and moving it to another.

Global trade reform along these lines would see the incentive for nations (like Bangladesh) to be the work-house of the West coming to an end. Indeed, the wages of ordinary workers throughout the world would be increased.

Super-low prices will end

Yes, it is true that the prices of some very low-priced, but valuable goods, like clothing, would increase significantly over time. This would reflect the fact that the workers of the world were not continuing to be impoverished in order to meet the needs of the developed world.

For those who do not like that prospect. Suck it up! It is coming!