In researching my article “Donald Trump Vs. Adam Smith,” I came across Michael Dukakis’s speech to Moog Automotive, an auto parts firm near St. Louis. What I found striking is the uncanny resemblance between Dukakis’s and Donald Trump’s views on foreign trade and even on making American great again. Thus the title of this post.
Here’s the segment on C-SPAN. Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt warms them up with his economic nationalism and then Dukakis continues the message.
Some highlights:
8:20: Gephardt wants an aggressive trade policy.
12:10: Gephardt wants to “Make America #1 Again.”
13:30: Dukakis wants to “Make America #1 Again.”
19:00: Dukakis says the president is commander in chief of the battle for America’s future. (Lawyer Dukakis must have been dozing the day they taught separation of powers in his Con Law class at the Harvard Law School.)
20:10: Dukakis decries the fact that so few consumer electronics are produced in America any more.
20:45: Dukakis decries the shift early in the Reagan administration from a trade surplus to a trade deficit.
21:50: Dukakis decries the fact that foreign owners are buying up America. Here’s where he made his gaffe, not understanding that the people he was talking to worked for a foreign-owned firm.
27:00: Dukakis insists that the U.S. open its borders only to those who open their borders to us.
READER COMMENTS
Benjamin Cole
Sep 10 2019 at 8:07pm
Globalism does not appear to be delivering the goods to the employee class of developed nations.
Michael Pettis posits that Germany became in exporting powerhouse after decreasing labor share of total income.
Wages in Japan stagnated when Japan began offshoring many manufacturing facilities, in order to compete globally.
I suspect the globalists are rather glib.
That said, it is difficult to decipher what motivates President Trump, if anything does on a steady basis. There are highly intelligent well-informed people with a variety of viewpoints on international trade, including the viewpoint that what is termed “free trade” is not always beneficial to populations in developed nations.
However, President Trump has never referred to the better thinkers on this topic.
Jon Murphy
Sep 13 2019 at 3:32pm
According to Jason Furman, Wal-Mart alone (which does a lot of trade with China) has increased American incomes on average about $2,500 per year. That figure is higher for the “employee class”, as poorer Americans tend to shop at Wal-Mart more than wealthier.
Consumption inequality (the material difference between people of different income groups) is rapidly falling.
More and more households are moving into the upper-income household brackets (and fewer to the low-income).
The percentage of incomes spent on basic necessities is at an all-time low.
In terms of labor-hours, many consumer goods are cheaper now (ie, they can be obtained with less effort) than at any time in the past.
So, the question before us is: what evidence do you have to support your claim that “Globalism [sic] does not appear to be delivering the goods to the employee class of developed nations.”
Furthermore, the trade war is having incredibly high costs that are falling heaviest on the employee class (see, for example, here, although I suspect their numbers are a bit high). So, even if you were correct in your assertion, the subsequent trade war is making things worse not better for the employee class.
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