An economic virus

An economic virus is a great piece by Jonah Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times about protectionism.

The beauty of the American free-trade consensus over the last few decades is that it split two outlooks that tend to go together: nationalism and socialism. In terms of economic policy, nationalism is indistinguishable from socialism. When you nationalize an industry, you socialize it. And what is the difference between socialized medicine and nationalized healthcare?

Liberals are naturally sympathetic to socialistic arguments, conservatives to nationalistic ones. But to everyone's benefit these two outlooks have been quarantined in different parties. Conservatives have been culturally nationalistic but economically liberal (in the classical sense). Liberals have been economically nationalistic — on healthcare, regulation, taxes, unions — but culturally liberal. Although it's been quite painful for them, this cultural liberalism has kept the Democratic Party in favor of free trade and immigration. Protectionism hurts foreigners and poor Americans, after all.

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Now, a win-at-all-costs Democratic Party has realized that this is the perfect moment for it to re-brand all of its economic ideas in the language of patriotism. Many Republicans are determined to fight the Democrats for this turf. So they too are bending their economic policies to fit their cultural conservatism.

And if we let them follow this path, we'll have the same problems as Europe in no time.