So....the concept of "nationalism" has been controversial in recent years. This is largely in part because Donald Trump effectively realigned the republican party to be an economically protectionist party, while Hillary Clinton realigned the democrats into a neoliberal party. And now, being any sort of "nationalist" is akin with being seen as a "nazi" or something, while the "left" is super duper pro open borders and pro immigrant and free trade and blah blah blah.
But, as someone whose views were mostly formed before the 2016 election cycle, it wasn't always this way. If anything, this was a relatively recent invention in modern politics, and before 2016 I think there were protectionist and globalist strains of politics on both sides of the aisle. And sadly, I feel like 2016 ultimately ended up being a clash between neoliberalism and a more protectionist ideology, and it just happened to take the form of the neoliberal-Trumper divide. As the democrats like to throw around, elections have consequences, but you know what? So do primaries. And that's why I was (and still am to an extent) as anti democratic party as I was/am. Hillary and her ideology didn't represent my politics at all, and while I couldn't in good conscience vote for Trump, I really found myself alienated from both parties. So that said, I feel like the left needs to somewhat reclaim economic nationalism for itself, and I will try my best to explain why it should be a prominent idea on the left.
In my own ideology, the nation state is the effective unit of governance. Let's go back to humanism and its atheistic roots here. Imagine there is no god. No divine figure telling people what to do and how to live. Well, in that environment, there is no law. All laws and rules are made by humans. We have this idea of the "social contract" in modern enlightenment theory, and while I do believe this idea can be flawed too, I still see it as the best justification of the nation state that I've seen. Despite being indepentarian/social libertarian, I am ultimately still somewhat of a Hobbesian, and believe anarchy is generally bad. And I do believe that the nation state is good, it just actually has to abide by the principles of the social contract, the idea that they gain the consent of the governed. I do not believe this can truly be achieved as dissenters are bound to exist, which is why I have my social libertarian/indepentarian roots suggesting a basic income to compensate these people, and to ensure people are as free to live their lives as they want, but I do believe that generally speaking, the state is legitimate, democracy is legitimate (assuming minority protections against the "tyranny by majority"), and that government is generally a good thing to some extent. This doesn't mean I don't have libertarian ideas otherwise, I believe that government is compatible with libertarianism to some degree, and in my own version, even conducive to it. You need a nice stable environment in which to thrive after all.
So, nation states are generally a good thing. And they are effectively the main unit of governance in my ideology. And while, again, I do believe that states should generally leave people alone to live their lives unless significant negative externalities result from that (and they sadly often do), I do believe that they should have the power to govern affairs in which their absence leads to markedly worse outcomes for people. In economics, I especially believe in government interventionism, as laissez faire economics leads to wild inequalities, exploitation, and a whole host of negative outcomes from pollution to worker deaths to poverty, to wage slavery.
As I stated in an extremely early article on this blog from 2016, there are four primary ways to solve economic problems: regulation, unions, safety nets, and socialism. Unions are a non state means of solving the problems, but let's face it, they face an extremely uphill battle and as I'll discuss later, their gains can very easily be erased. Regulations can reduce the suffering involved in relationships but often don't solve the root causes. Safety nets can correct markets, but require the ability to raise money and and tax people. And socialism can have some potential depending on the exact implementation, but the mechanics of implementing it properly, as well as its past failures, make me leery of it.
Generally speaking, modern social democracies are a mishmash of these things. You have strong union power (and regulations protecting those unions), you got regulations protecting workers and the like, and you got large safety nets. My own ideology of social libertarianism takes things a step further. Given I have a social libertarian outlook, I do believe in basic income, freedom as the power to say no, and ability to bargain on one's own terms. Regulations are nice, but kind of serve as band aids on the problem. And unions are too collectivist, unreliable, and job oriented. In a lot of ways, my problem isn't with the ownership of the means of production, or simply the conditions of work, but work itself, and I take things in a different direction, generally being more in favor of supporting safety nets in order to solve capitalism's economic woes.
This kind of puts me in a position where I feel like I have to be more economically nationalist than other lefties. After all, the nation state is needed to implement things like UBI, or regulations, or protect unions. Heck to go deeper than that, much of what the right relies on requires states too. Property rights, a safe environment in which to practice capitalism. Let's not forget the excesses of laissez faire capitalism are legitimized via the state, they wouldn't happen without it because without it we'd all be killing each other with rocks and dying in our 30s. That monopoly on violence is a necessary evil to "keep the peace" so to speak.
But here's the thing. In order to regulate the economy where we can do things like UBI, we need to tax people. Neoliberals and right libs wanna make it where anyone who is taxed too much can flee the country and take the wealth with them. And they want to bring in immigrants in order to work and grow the economy, which causes tension with my idea of large universal safety nets. Perhaps a more work oriented ideology like third way neoliberalism where safety nets are considered more of an afterthought to the market and the focus is on people getting jobs and full employment, you could argue that such ideas make sense. But with my own ideology, no I am more nationalist. As I see it, if the government doesn't have the power to regulate the market, what ends up happening is the market limits what governments can do. Which we often see. "Oh we need to lower the corporate tax rate!" "Why?" "Because all the corporations are leaving because it's too high." So you mean corporations are voting with their feet and going to countries with lower taxes. Hmm, it's almost as if states are in a race to the bottom within a global market over tax rates. Then apply that to regulations. Often times businesses will leave countries to undermine union power or regulations to make products more cheaply overseas. So you got countries using cheap foreign labor to undermine American workers. Which is one of the reasons I feel like the right went protectionist in 2016. The democrats were pushing the trans pacific partnership, which was like NAFTA on steroids, and in response to people noting that their well paying factory jobs were disappearing, democrats' mentality was "JuSt MoVe". Basically move to cities and pay $2000+ on rent trying to find a job in a highly dense and competitive urban environment, yay.
Ya know, I recognize capitalism provides positive benefits in culling bad products and the like from the market, as the "invisible hand" is just institutionalized darwinism at work, but when that process is applied to PEOPLE, well, that's just cruel. Hence human centered capitalism. I want the economy to work for people, not the other way around. And I believe that means we need regulations to make stuff work. We need safety nets, like a UBI. We need union power. We might even be able to utilize market socialism. But we need a state. We need to respect state sovereignty to properly regulate economic affairs within their own borders, we need to control immigration to ensure that people can't just leave the country and take their wealth with them, and also to ensure that we don't get flooded by poor desperate people distorting the market by flooding in (or alternatively collecting generous, universal safety nets). We need to fight against "globalism."
As Bernie Sanders said in 2016, "open borders is a Koch brothers proposal". Notice how Sanders frames it has a right wing proposal. Because, economically, all of this globalist open borders free trade crap IS the right wing view. The right wing view on economics is laissez faire. The less regulation the better. And what the right wants to do is to supercede the power of the state, by subverting it to the market. I'm on the left. Maybe not the socialist left, but pretty far left for someone who is still a "liberal" or "capitalist". Again, the fact that the right has become protectionist and the left is for open borders is a product of the times. The fact that the divide between the two parties is a far right nationalist movement (and their nationalism is more than just a product of economic policy, they are nationalist in all of the bad ways too), and a neoliberal, culturally left but economically centrist party. Meanwhile I consider myself more culturally centrist but economically left person, with politics more aligned with Bernie Sanders or Andrew Yang, than anything that represents the mainstream of either party.
I honestly believe that at the root of 2016 was a divide between nationalism and globalism. And this battle happened both on the left and the right. it just so happens the victors of each side's internal battles represent the mainstream politics of the parties. That's why I believed that back in 2016, Bernie could have won. Because I believe there was a faction of independents who would've went for Bernie, but not for Trump. I also believe this is why Fetterman beat Oz this year, and why democrats actually exceeded Biden's margins in that race. If you click on that link, in particular look at the map that show the arrows. Look at how most counties actually went harder blue, while only a handful went red. Centrist dems view PA for example as Philly and Pittsburgh, with a lot of red in between. While those internal PA counties do go red, they went red HARD in 2016, compared to 2008 or 2012. This was because the democrats alienated white working class voters in those regions. This is also why Biden managed to eek out a win that Hillary didn't, and why Fetterman expanded on that win. People in internal PA, and the cites there do lean more conservative than philly and pittsburgh, but many are concerned about jobs. They're concerned about immigration, as many cities have had an exploding immigrant population in the past several decades. They're concerned about jobs going overseas, automation, etc, and if the left cannot provide an answer to those voters, the right will. Instead the democrats tries to win over suburban voters, for example, in Chester county, which is fully of rich Philly suburb people, and one of the only counties to become more red in 2022. And the other counties were allegedly full of people from NJ and NY, presumably living in their second vacation homes (much like Dr. Oz). I feel like the fact that Fetterman beat Biden's numbers during what should've been a red year is a repudiation of what the democrats have been trying to do with all of this woke neoliberal stuff. Bernie would have likely won in 2016. And I do believe he would've run up the margins in the rust belt in 2020 vs Biden too, although he likely could not have carried georgia or arizona. Still, I didn't consider those to even be in play for democrats in a serious way until recently, and they're the only places the democrats' "sun belt" strategy seems to be working at all. In Arizona's case I see it more a repudiation of Trump, as prior to the Trump years, it was known as a bastion of moderate republicans like John McCain. Georgia seems to be legitimately shifting to being "in play." Still, given democrats have been losing ground in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Florida, and even Minnesota to some extent, all states Obama was able to compete in and win, I feel like this strategy has generally been more good for the republicans and bad for the democrats.
The fact is, the neoliberals and right libertarian types can go on all they want about the benefits of immigration and open borders and free trade, and try to guilt trip people with memes like "why do you hate the global poor", but ultimately, most people care about themselves first. And unless you can get the economic boot off of peoples' throats, as Andrew Yang would say, they will go into defensive mode, trying to protect their own lives, even at the expense of others. And unless the left has an answer for these people, then some groups will continue to shift right. And the left right now is in a very precarious place. Specifically because it HAS made these choices toward woke neoliberalism, and specifically because the right has countered with a more culturally and economically nativist narrative. If the democrats cant cede ground and triangulate to the center even a little, then I fear that whatever wins the democrats have had in recent years will eventually be undone. As some lefties are pointing out, constantly being in a position of being one election away from a fascist takeover and winning only by the skin of your teeth every time is NOT a good position to be in. But it's the position the democrats have dug themselves into. If they want to ultimately take the narrative back and put the right on defense, they need to embrace some form of economic nationalism for themselves. And I believe my ideology provides a blueprint to do it. The Bernie/Fetterman brand of left provides another vision. What we don't need though is woke neoliberalism. That crap is toxic and costs the left elections.
Now, before I conclude, I do want to end this by correcting some misconceptions people might have of me, since they can point to some very factually correct criticisms of what I posted. For example, they can push the idea that immigration is a boon to the national economy, and that free trade makes us richer. Sure. And I'm not totally against those things. Even though I believe in the concept of borders and controlled immigration, being for controlled legal immigration isn't the same thing as open borders. What I don't want are just millions of people coming in without our approval, and I definitely don't want them collecting universal benefits intended for citizens and legal residents. Still, I would support a relatively moderate position on immigration, consistent with say, the Biden or Obama administrations generally. On free trade...only with countries with similar economic standards as ours. Both standards of living, and also things like laws, regulations, taxation, union membership, etc. Again, Im not against trade, I'm just for regulated trade and not the unfettered free market capitalism crap of the right, which undermines national sovereignty and locks us all into a neoliberal/right wing libertarian dystopia. I'm not trying to take a right wing nativist position a la the Trump administration here. I don't agree with the Trump administration's approach on these issues. I am advocating for a moderate triangulated position largely coming from a place of left wing values as an answer to that. I believe the best way to derail the right is to approach the core concerns that drive people that way, and then to provide our own answer with our own values instead. So, I just wanted to make that clear.
But yeah, this is my position. I don't think economic nationalism is necessarily a bad thing. I am an economic nationalist of sorts. I believe in the nation state as the primary unit of governance on this planet. I believe that it can provide positive benefits assuming it is structured properly. I believe that it has a right and a mandate to properly regulate economic affairs, as economic anarchy generally leads to bad results for most of the populace, and I believe that globalism is an inherent threat to left wing goals and causes as it can undermine national sovereignty to properly regulate economic issues, subverting the concept of nation states themselves to the market. And I believe that it is in the best interests of the left to adopt some form of economic nationalism in their political brand/ideology as opposed to neoliberalism, as I believe that the strength of trump's movement and his populism comes from poor positioning on the left regarding these issues and the right outflanking the left in winning over certain segments of voters. I believe that economic nationalism is not just compatible with the left, but necessary for it to function properly, and that globalism is just more right wing laissez faire economics which has been a disaster for the average person no matter when and where it has been tried. This is not to say that there is not a role for some forms of immigration, trade, and multilateralism on the international stage, but it should be approached with caution, and it should happen in a regulated environment that is consistent with our values, not in an unfettered state.
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