I definitely understand the anti-establishment appeal of Trump, but I just don't understand how the intelligent Trump supports like Kevin Lynn square that with imposing tariffs on products consumed by lower classes. It really will not help one of the key rationalizations for Trump's win, i.e. inflation. Unless these intelligent supporters are really just accelerationists, I cannot understand their support.
Trump's economic policies quit clearly intensify the concentration of capital with the super wealthy. I have yet to see a well articulate pro-Trump argument that supports the supposed notion that he is an economic populist. Again, I understand his support as a cultural or social populist, but economically he is far from it.
With regard to tariffs, I view them as tool in the toolbox of America First trade policy. Neoliberalism which in my view is the unfettered movement of people, capital and goods across international borders in order to maximize profit is what has been intensifying the the concentration of capital with the super wealthy. Interestingly, under Trump family income rose in the year before Covid by 6.8 percent which according to Robert Lighthizer, was the largest in the nation's history.
Given everything I have read to date, tariffs will be less about driving revenue than about forcing manufacturing back to the continental United States. Vaclav Smil wrote of the importance of manufacturing in his book, Made in the USA:
"Making the case for perpetuating a strong manufacturing sector in America’s service-dominated economy thus rests mainly on three fundamental realities. First, and most notably, manufacturing has been the principal driver of technical innovation, and technical innovation in turn has been the most important source of economic growth in modern societies. Second, despite extensive offshoring, large labor cuts, and a deep erosion of many formerly thriving sectors (apparel, consumer electronics, leather goods, machine tools, primary steel), US manufacturing remains very large and, in absolute value–added terms, still a growing part of the nation’s economy, and a reversal of this long-term trend would make the existing socioeconomic challenges even harder to tackle. Third, a relatively low intensity of manufactured exports has contributed to the country’s trade deficits. . . "
Don't expect to see tariffs applied willy nilly or immediately. I am guessing the administration will give companies a couple years to reshore and or friend shore before they are imposed.
In Robert Lighthizer's book, No Trade is Free he points out that even Jefferson came around to the wisdom of tariffs when he saw the need to protect the country nascent industrial base.
I'm going out on a limb here when I say that trade and industrial policy in the late 2020s and 2030s will probably resemble a mercantile model than the globalist trade model of today driven by market efficiency in which everything and everyone is commoditized.
Trump's trade team in his first administration were asking the right question which was, "what is an economy for."
I’m tagging @Kevin Lynn and @Steven S. Lamb here to see if they care to take a stab at that. I talked about this topic in the framework of complex adaptive systems and accelerationism with @Peter Clarke for his Team Futurism podcast yesterday. Peter agrees with you, I think. I doubt my response on the podcast will change your mind. I’ll post the link to Peter’s podcast once he releases it.
It is true that I once was a Democrat, but that began in the post Watergate era as a anti establishment tack. By the time Bill Clinton got elected the entire democrat party was a totally corrupt organization . The only difference was taht te Dems marginally until Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State were anti war. then the Dems became total war hawks. Ys I'm for Trump for the same reasons I was for Perot, Dennis Kusinich, Howard Dean and RFK Jr. My values didnt change, the Democrat Party did.
A point I was trying to work around to in the podcast but didn’t make very clearly is that I hear Democrats describing the mental state and attitude of their notion of a Trump voter. The invoke a vivid stereotype that surely somebody fits, but none of the people I know personally who voted for Trump matched the fantasy archetype the Dems assume is universal.
KMO- from roughly mid may until two days after election day I wore a 4" button with a red background and orange lettering that said 45 & 47, From the first week in June I knew Trump would win. I drink coffee in a rotation of three local shops. Two of them display the LGBTQI+ flag and all their barristas are Gay or Lesbian. When the stud leather dyke at your local coffee bar leans over after looking around to see that no one is paying attention and whispers "I like your button" When the flamboyant gender impossible to identify person at the next coffee bar does the same, you know Biden or Kamala are toast. When you go to the other coffee bar where all the not for profiteers hang out in Pasadena and all the staff love your button and half the regulars frightened to death come by your table and very quietly tell you they are voting fo Trump, and you are in California, you know Kamala is toast. The media image of the Trump voter as a ill educated drooling on kis guns homophobic racist intolorant violence prone, mysogynist not only isnt real, it's a projection of the Democrat establishment of itself.
I definitely understand the anti-establishment appeal of Trump, but I just don't understand how the intelligent Trump supports like Kevin Lynn square that with imposing tariffs on products consumed by lower classes. It really will not help one of the key rationalizations for Trump's win, i.e. inflation. Unless these intelligent supporters are really just accelerationists, I cannot understand their support.
Trump's economic policies quit clearly intensify the concentration of capital with the super wealthy. I have yet to see a well articulate pro-Trump argument that supports the supposed notion that he is an economic populist. Again, I understand his support as a cultural or social populist, but economically he is far from it.
Hi Anthony,
With regard to tariffs, I view them as tool in the toolbox of America First trade policy. Neoliberalism which in my view is the unfettered movement of people, capital and goods across international borders in order to maximize profit is what has been intensifying the the concentration of capital with the super wealthy. Interestingly, under Trump family income rose in the year before Covid by 6.8 percent which according to Robert Lighthizer, was the largest in the nation's history.
Given everything I have read to date, tariffs will be less about driving revenue than about forcing manufacturing back to the continental United States. Vaclav Smil wrote of the importance of manufacturing in his book, Made in the USA:
"Making the case for perpetuating a strong manufacturing sector in America’s service-dominated economy thus rests mainly on three fundamental realities. First, and most notably, manufacturing has been the principal driver of technical innovation, and technical innovation in turn has been the most important source of economic growth in modern societies. Second, despite extensive offshoring, large labor cuts, and a deep erosion of many formerly thriving sectors (apparel, consumer electronics, leather goods, machine tools, primary steel), US manufacturing remains very large and, in absolute value–added terms, still a growing part of the nation’s economy, and a reversal of this long-term trend would make the existing socioeconomic challenges even harder to tackle. Third, a relatively low intensity of manufactured exports has contributed to the country’s trade deficits. . . "
Don't expect to see tariffs applied willy nilly or immediately. I am guessing the administration will give companies a couple years to reshore and or friend shore before they are imposed.
In Robert Lighthizer's book, No Trade is Free he points out that even Jefferson came around to the wisdom of tariffs when he saw the need to protect the country nascent industrial base.
I'm going out on a limb here when I say that trade and industrial policy in the late 2020s and 2030s will probably resemble a mercantile model than the globalist trade model of today driven by market efficiency in which everything and everyone is commoditized.
Trump's trade team in his first administration were asking the right question which was, "what is an economy for."
I’m tagging @Kevin Lynn and @Steven S. Lamb here to see if they care to take a stab at that. I talked about this topic in the framework of complex adaptive systems and accelerationism with @Peter Clarke for his Team Futurism podcast yesterday. Peter agrees with you, I think. I doubt my response on the podcast will change your mind. I’ll post the link to Peter’s podcast once he releases it.
It is true that I once was a Democrat, but that began in the post Watergate era as a anti establishment tack. By the time Bill Clinton got elected the entire democrat party was a totally corrupt organization . The only difference was taht te Dems marginally until Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State were anti war. then the Dems became total war hawks. Ys I'm for Trump for the same reasons I was for Perot, Dennis Kusinich, Howard Dean and RFK Jr. My values didnt change, the Democrat Party did.
A point I was trying to work around to in the podcast but didn’t make very clearly is that I hear Democrats describing the mental state and attitude of their notion of a Trump voter. The invoke a vivid stereotype that surely somebody fits, but none of the people I know personally who voted for Trump matched the fantasy archetype the Dems assume is universal.
KMO- from roughly mid may until two days after election day I wore a 4" button with a red background and orange lettering that said 45 & 47, From the first week in June I knew Trump would win. I drink coffee in a rotation of three local shops. Two of them display the LGBTQI+ flag and all their barristas are Gay or Lesbian. When the stud leather dyke at your local coffee bar leans over after looking around to see that no one is paying attention and whispers "I like your button" When the flamboyant gender impossible to identify person at the next coffee bar does the same, you know Biden or Kamala are toast. When you go to the other coffee bar where all the not for profiteers hang out in Pasadena and all the staff love your button and half the regulars frightened to death come by your table and very quietly tell you they are voting fo Trump, and you are in California, you know Kamala is toast. The media image of the Trump voter as a ill educated drooling on kis guns homophobic racist intolorant violence prone, mysogynist not only isnt real, it's a projection of the Democrat establishment of itself.