Doubtful Notions
”Fighting does not solve anything.” A saw made up to persuade people toward pacifism. In fact, the only potential virtue possessed by fighting is that it sometimes does solve things. Did the Americans and their allies fighting from D-Day to Berlin not solve the problem of European fascism, at least for the time? Do not a few fisticuffs in the schoolyard often dissipate conflicts, clear the air, and lead to friendships, or at least to an acceptable hierarchy? There are some problems that can be solved only by fighting.
”They also serve who only stand and wait.” These words from Milton’s sonnet on his blindness have some validity if they mean that God values us all whether we are able to act in His behalf or not. But the saying is more often used to comfort stay-at-homes during war or some emergency. In that case, it does not make much sense.
Tariffs were the cause of American economic might and would restore our industrial strength and workers’ welfare if we would re-adopt them and get rid of “free trade.” The nostalgia for taxes on foreign goods is understandable among those worried about American decline. However, it is mistaken for all sorts of reasons. Tariffs, like every other government action, cannot create wealth—they can only redistribute it. To credit tariffs with American economic might is rather to neglect the intelligence, hard work, enterprise, entrepreneurship, creativity, and incomparably immense treasure of natural resources that Americans displayed and enjoyed during the growth of our wealth and strength in the 19th and 20th centuries. There is no real evidence that tariffs enhanced American prosperity—quite the contrary. Tariff advocates like to condemn the present government-managed trade as somehow the product of a mistaken belief in free-trade theory. The present system is not free trade, which is the exchange of goods without the added costs of government interference. The present system is slave trade, resting on the trading of people, which was never a part of free trade. In the tariff era the law was arranged to profit the dominant interests of industrial capital—at the expense of everyone else. In the “free trade” era legislation is arranged to profit the dominant interests of financial capital—at the expense of everyone else. “Free trade” advocates of the present regime are not devoted to a beautiful theory—they are serving their masters. Blaming “free trade” merely detracts from the real issue, which is one of power, not of economic theory. Were a tariff policy adopted, who can doubt that the interests that own Congress would work it to their advantage? How can tariffs help American workers—unless you consider as “American” all the imported cheap labour that is coming and will come. In fact, the high tariff era was also the era of high immigration—the industrialists imported contract gangs of impoverished workers from Europe to keep down the wages of native Americans. Tariff advocates imagine that their policy will bring an America independent of foreigners. In fact, a high tariff policy is historically associated with militarism and imperialism. Countries that hamper foreign imports discourage reciprocal trade. They need to go abroad to find coerced markets. This was a major factor in American leaders adopting imperialism in the late 19th century—controlling colonial markets. Matthew Carey, who was the foremost American spokesman for “tariff protection” in the 19th century was also the spokesman for a large navy to compete with Britain for control of markets around the world. (He was not even a native American but an Irish immigrant who wanted to use U.S. power to damage Britain.) Carey, thirty years before the War Between the States, wanted the North to invade the South and force it to accept the tariff. If it is necessary to build or strengthen certain industries, a direct subsidy would me more honest and effective than a tariff or any of the indirect subsidies (tax breaks, etc.) now used. Of course, you would still have the corruption, incompetence, and colossal wastefulness of federal bureaucrats.
”Lafayette we are here.” It is pretty well established that General Pershing did not actually say this when the American Expeditionary Force landed in France in World War I. However, the saying doubtless reflected sentiment at the time, which was wholly inaccurate. Lafayette was an advocate of ordered liberty and loved America. Like any real American patriot, he would never have approved of Americans joining in the pointless carnage among the militarized European states.
“America does not go abroad searching for monsters to slay.” This supposed statement by John Quincy Adams is often invoked by Americans who want to disparage foreign interventionism. Its use is an indication of how deeply entrenched is Massachusetts control of American discourse. The warnings of great statesmen and patriots Washington and Jefferson would serve much better. Actually, J.Q. Adams is a poor example for American non-interventionists. As Secretary of State he put out the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted U.S. supremacy in the Western Hemisphere and was later used by imperialists like Teddy Roosevelt to justify aggressive intervention in other countries. As President, Adams attempted to get the U.S. involved in an international association of South American states, though fortunately that was shot down by a vigilant Congress.
“All men are created equal . . .” It is difficult to imagine a more absurd and untrue statement. The gentlemen who signed the document containing these words on behalf of the thirteen colonies were bolstering their declaration of independence with a bit of poetic sentiment. They were indicating their belief that all free citizens of a commonwealth were entitled to the rights that in the Old World had been limited to the privileged few, that distinctions that are merely hereditary should not trump earned distinctions. And that a Briton on this side of the water had just as much right to self-government as a Briton in the mother country. Men are created in the womb, where they are anything but equal to the born. They are born as mewing babes, unable to survive a day without a hierarchical society surrounding them. Their equality has no meaning outside that society and the divine recognition of the uniqueness of every soul. If those gentlemen had known what misuse their statement would be put by ideologues and fools after the French Revolution, they would have used other words.
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Professor Wilson,
Let me be the first to congratulate you on your demolition of the last "doubtful notion." That paragraph, almost poetic in itself were it not excellent prose, is a stand-alone statement of tradition, human experience and the wisdom of the ages. Hurrah, good sir!
Funny... tonight I happened to be reading Joseph de Maistre's Essay on the Generative Principles of Political Constitutiona and Other Human Institutions. Here's his first paragraph:
"In the world of politics, which is perhaps the thorniest of the sciences due the ever-renewing difficulty of discerning what therein is stable and what therein is movable, one discerns very strange and peculiar phenomenon that must surely perturb any wise man called to the administration of a State, and it is thus: everything which good common sense perceives initially as a self-evident political truth is nearly always exposed, through the wisdom of experience, as something not only false, but gruesome."
A bit of an overstatement, perhaps (Maistre might not have been so thoughtful, original or self-consistent as I once might have assumed), but insightful nonetheless.
" But the saying is more often used to comfort stay-at-homes during war or some emergency. "
I always thought it was Milton's attempt to say to William Tecumseh Cromwell that even as a blind man he could still be useful to the revolution, or perhaps he was in "advance of his time" and could see the modern nursing home for invalids and veterans ahead, or maybe his accompanying note about God not needing our good works had some profound theological meaning ?? One thing for certain is he could not have been talking about the primacy of the contemplative over the active life. An old Puritan like Milton loved the people's pavlovian response to the world's constant harangue, " Something must be done!". Afterall, it gives their leaders the opportunity to say," Here, this is something of vital interest, do this...." Vote, fight, tax, spend, hate, etc. No thank you.
Here is my favorite take on these type of poems wrirtten by blind poets: http://transfiguration.chartreux.org/Publications/10-SilentSummer.pdf
Friend Robert, I don't see your point in citing the Italian Carthusians' heroism. So I'm standing and waiting.
Mr. Piatak, I hear you and sympathise with your goals. However, I think you place too much faith in the honesty and patriotism of the capitalists. Better than a tariff would be the value added proposal that has several times been floated by Chronicles.
Ray,
The phrase "They also serve who only stand and wait” is a little ambiguous. And I agree with Dr. Wilson that it can be used to excuse sloth and cowardliness but it might also raise the question about what ought to be done. I am being bombarded in the morning e-mail with pre- election reminders that bad things always happen when good men do nothing -- as if trying to flatter me will drive out my sloth about the election. At least part of courage is knowing what to fear and what not to fear as much as it is knowing what to do and what not to do and when to do it. I am afraid the next election cycle does not disturb me much ---- one way or the other. For a movie buff like yourself have you ever seen AU Revoir Les Enfants ? You might enjoy watching it.
The thing with "free trade" is that it is impossible to achieve trade balance with "liberal" or "free" fiscal policy alone so long as the monetary factor is not "free," i.e., floating currencies are manipulated. The trade deficit with China would have corrected itself long agI had China not been able to keep the yuan low by buying large quantities of U.S. treasury securities. Trade discourse needs to be shifted away from that of "jobs" (a losing issue, since in the end it leads to Luddism if played out logically) and more on the problem of capital flight and how/whether the U.S. can either counterbalance this monetary manipulation through fiscal policy or prevent it from succeeding (not being an economist, I cannot say whether or how one might go about stopping selling Treasury debt before balancing the Federal budget, and that seems difficult given our trade imbalance).
In the strictest sense, Keynes may have been right that if I owe a man a million pounds it is my interlocutor who has the problem, but not if I gave him as collateral a productive patrimonial arsenal whilst I have squandered the money on non-renewing consumables. In the end, obviously, the true worry is that China ends up with a larger real productivity base than ours.
In the end, obviously, the true worry is that China ends up with a larger real productivity base than ours.
... and, more to the point, that we lack the productive capacity to provide real prosperity to our own population.
This is where the Occupy crowd has it wrong. Railing against the "1 Percent" and demanding redistribution of the nation's $15.586 trillion will do no good, because much of that $15.586 trillion is fake, credit, floated only on good faith and historical confidence, and if it were all presented for conversion into real goods and useful services today, the true poverty of the United States would be exposed once and for all. The real reason why the ranks of the underclasses are swelling is simply that there is not enough real prosperity to go around.
Mr. Moses, thanks for your wise words. The question of trade cannot be separated from the questions of credit control and government spending and debt. It is not trade, free or otherwise, that is responsible for the impoverishment of our country.
Would the myth of "Honest Abe", whom many today consider the greatest president in U.S. History, be appropriate to include under "Doubtful Notions"? I know most folks are likely already aware of it, but having made it about a fourth of the way through Shelby Foote's third volume on the Civil War, I confess that my enlightenment on this matter is coming later than sooner in life. The picture of this humble, folksy, but good-hearted man that was drilled into me in childhood from every angle has given way to the reality of a cutthroat and shrewd politician who never kept his word longer than it served his purpose. The more I have learned the more I have seen that, if Washington was the Father of the Country, A. Lincoln is the Father of what Dr. Wilson appropriately terms the "Evil Yankee Empire" we all suffer under today.
Perhaps it's the galling Spielburgh movie set to release in November that's sticking in my craw. Or the farce of A. Lincoln, Vampire Killer that recently left the theaters. But it's one Doubtful Notion that I am just absolutely sick of. This myth has reached epic proportions - what next? Will A. Lincoln join the cast of the Avengers in the sequel? Perhaps he can give Batman a few pointers? The man is set above Zeus in the pantheon of the gods - may he be brought down to earth soon.
Robert--I haven't seen it, and I intend to. It'll probably be awhile, since I'm watching films in chronology, interjecting a newer one when I feel like a breather from older sound and black-and white. I'll be starting with the films of 1932 tomorrow. First up: Das blaue Licht, by Leni Riefenstahl and Bela Balazs, which would seem to be unlikely, since Balazs was a Marxist, whereas Riefenstahl associated with a different brand of socialist.
Dr. Wilson, this was my inspiration:
If billions of dollars of real estate and stock market wealth can disappear overnight, is it possible it never existed to begin with?~"Even More of the Way We Are Now," 2 April 2008
Yes, but the unyeilding problem being: when elites are allowed to print a nation's currency for loan and it's all owed back to them personally (not to the commonwealth whose currency it is). They're immediately transferring it internationally into real assets, commodities, real estate, industry personally owned by themselves. This literally extrudes a nation's wealth into the hands of a few. Elites are already a non-conspiratorial necessity on account of the iron law of oligarchy regardless of the format of governance. Because the aggregate or mass which is more powerful, instinctively knows it needs leadership or it is otherwise too insubstantial. But to give away the currency in this fashion to elites is not only corrupting of them but also in effect institutes an across the board slave system. So in any society because the people invariably go where they are led, the quality of a society, its substance, its wealth, its humanity, is a direct reflection of its elite.
Dr. Wilson, I was interested in two particular lines you wrote:
"Like any real American patriot, he would never have approved of Americans joining in the pointless carnage among the militarized European states."
"If those gentlemen had known what misuse their statement would be put by ideologues and fools after the French Revolution, they would have used other words."
Both of these concern how men from long past before all of us would have likely reacted or felt about something that happens in our place and time, or in a time much later than theirs.
I believe it's possible to make a good guess about such things looking at the right evidence. But I still feel there is something delicate about proclaiming what men who have died decades or centuries ago would have felt about something today. It's difficult enough to read another man's mind; heavens knows how much harder it would be to do so for someone from a different era altogether.
I submit that what created the trade imbalance and therefore made currency manipulation necessary was first of all traitorous or at the very least unpatriotic owners and financial adepts who began the sellout of the American worker right about the time I was entering the workforce.
Mr. Jacobi, without wanting to be mistaken for a Jacobin (egalitarian) since I'm not fond of attempting the impossible, I agree with your assessment.
Given the iron law of oligarchy regardless of the format of governance attendant to that is noblesse oblige. If that is absent, the rot then if from the bottom up began from the top down. Although it got worse and is worsening in the time frame you indicated, sadly it began again on these shores one hundred years ago.