But the notion of an inherent evil in cultivating and sustaining a local economy is wrong-headed if you care about the planet, life and ridding the world of poverty and hunger.

From a trade perspective, read Bad Samaritans (The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism) by Ha-Joon Chang.

So while the term “protectionism” may have been adapted by political deviants on the nationalistic side, stripped of this prejudice is a very important, even vital, need for self-sufficiency.

Free Trade is the manifestation and extention of industrialized modernism. It has deforested large swaths of land and created poisonous carbon from poor mechanized farming and all that that implies. People can feed themselves and provide for themselves with little to no help. It is Free Trade which has upended the indigenous capacity to live off the bounty that nature provides in food, medicene and fuel.

I have strong doubts about the ‘evils’ of protectionism, and my doubts are reinforced, not lessened, by the fact that our illustrious leaders are opposed to it. Surely if those who ruined the world’s economy are opposed to something, that something must be good?

Rodrigue,

You write: ‘What is needed now is to avoid sending the world economy into a self-reinforcing contraction…’ but apart from siding with those who screwed the world in the first place do not suggest how.

One of the most obvious effects of our ruined economy is exploding unemployment. People, and the economy, need jobs that pay a living wage; but thanks to our non-protectionist governments and our thrusting captains of industry who between them have all but destroyed local manufacturing in their tireless quest for finding the cheapest slaves on the global slave market, that is now all but impossible. Suggesting that we should continue to follow these people is not clever.

Protecting local businesses may have its faults, but it is far more likely to stimulate the labour market, and hence the national economy, than protecting the global slave trade.

There are plenty of neoliberal apologists willing quote ideologues like Von Mises and Friedman in the corporate media…no need to give them a voice here. And as was state previous the logic of this and nearly all economists (widely known in academics cricles to be the flimsy non-science “social science” in the bunch) is skewed towards the status quo and untenable presuppositions supporting capitalism.

Pathetic. I never thought I’d see the day an article of this low caliber would be posted on DV.

The reason why the U.S. won’t go “protectionist” has to do with maintaining the system of world-wide Capitalism and especially keeping U.S. Labor off-balance. If jobs could not be shipped oversea then labor would have increased bargaining power. I don’t think you’ll see the Congress go hog-wild over protectionism either.

The reason for the Great Depression has more to do with inequality. There were tremendous speculation and inequalities in the 1920’s which set the stage for a Capitalist crisis of the 1930’s. The same is true today. Thirty years of stagnant wages and inequality has set the stage for a crisis in Capitalism.

Workers are not in control of the economy. Clearly if the workers were in charged there would be no “Depression”. People would have access to the resources they need.