Sobering thought
A world without America. HT austinbay The non-interventionists in the Libertarian Party ought to think long and hard about this.
posted by David Aitken | 2:36 PM
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3 Comments:
In any party, for that matter.
That's all speculation, of course. There's no telling what the world would look like if the U.S. had pursued free trade consistently over the last century-and-a-half.
Even after all our military adventures our most notable achievements have come via commerce. (Especially if you just look at commerce as a means to fund the military) Communism, and the Cold War, were brought to an end largely via trade, although dead enders still exist.
It is an error to call global free trade advocates 'isolationists.'
I agree that global free trade advocates are not isolationists. I don't think, however, that a non-interventionist foreign policy is likely in the near term, if ever, for several reasons. The US Constitution created a very beneficial environment for free trade that does not exist on an international level, although it partially exists between 40 or so nations, in part guaranteed by the US military which keeps the sea lanes and skies open to commerce.
Belligerent failed states and terrorist groups threaten international stability and limit free trade. Power abhors a vacuum, so some entity will fill this role; I'd much rather have it be the US than the UN or some other group. Some of the wars and conflicts going on in the world are due to poorly drawn borders. I think border changes to accommodate cultural and ethnic realities would be a real boon to reducing the violence. Putting Sunni and Shia Moslems, for example, in the same nation is almost guaranteed to produce conflict; separating them into separate states might limit that significantly. (But that doesn't guarantee they'll not want to attack their neighbors.)
Non-freedom oriented belief systems (communism, socialism, fascism, jihadism), and immigration from failed states are other problems that limit free trade and place real burdens on the US.
Business regulations that are significantly less free than ours encourage foreign nationals to seek out opportunities here and cause some harm to us, too.
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