Friedrich List, China, and Economic Nationalism

June 13, 2019 By William R. Hawkins

"We ask, would not every sane person consider a government to be insane which, in consideration of the benefits and the reason­ableness of a state of universal and perpetual peace, proposed to disband its armies, destroy its fleet, and demolish its fortresses? But such a government would be doing nothing different in principle from what the popular school requires from governments when, because of the advantages which would be derivable from general free trade, it urges that they should abandon the advantages derivable from protection.".

This statement by Friedrich List in his 1844 book The National System of Political Economy sets out the basic difference in assumption about how the world works held by Free Traders and Nationalists. While Free Traders such as the French economist Jean-Baptiste Say believed that "All nations are friends in the nature of things" their more conservative mercantilist opponents considered economics a vital founda­tion of national strength in a world where international competi­tion decided not just the fate of business enterprises but of entire societies............In the international arena, economics is not a purely private matter because there are wider consequences. ...........the "Made in China 2025" program which is an evolution of how Beijing has always managed trade. If foreign firms want to sell in China, they must build in China. The next step is to create national rivals who will drive them out now that they have served their purpose of transferring technology and management skills.........

Those American firms that plunged into China, hoping to profit as they helped Beijing rise to Great Power status, are now lobbying politicians and the public against policies that would place national security ahead of their private interests.............They took a foolish risk, based on an apparent ignorance of the true nature of Beijing's ambitions. Now they will pay for that blunder and no one should mourn for them.

And as policy changes, so must business if it is to survive and remain credible with the American people. Trading with the enemy has never been seen as an honorable practice. ............. Read more

My Take - When Henry Kissinger went to China he said to Mao, the nice thing about this is we don't want anything from each other.  Mao responded by saying that "if I didn't want something from you I wouldn't have invited you and if you didn't want something from me you shouldn't have come". 

Kissinger and his globalist crowd acted like Mao did them a great big favor. 

In reality, Mao's communism was killing China, and he desperately needed the west, especially America, to bail him out.  We need to get this.  Philosophically, communism is like Islam.  It takes, it doesn't give, and neither changes, they merely adopt whatever strategy necessary to continue to take, and eventually destroy.  Both will always be philosophical failures that cause unending human suffering and misery. 

That's history, and that history is incontestable!

If Nixon, Kissinger and that crowd, who still exist in power circles, had let China fend for itself, and kept up the economic pressures perhaps China wouldn't still be under the iron fist of communism, and the same is true of Russia.  Putin says U.S. Russian relations are worsening and the leftist media cringe and grovel to Putin demanding Trump stop being for America.  That's to be expected and it also to be ignored.  Who cares what Putin thinks?  Unless of course you're  too stupid to understand, or unwilling to understand, what's really going on, or deliberately ignoring reality to promote the destruction of the United States in favor of worldwide leftism.