June 12, 2024

Hidden between the hand-wringing articles about what the growing vote for the far right means is a growing number of editorials lamenting the rise of "protectionism".

They are mostly written by well-meaning left liberals who cannot see what is going on around them, or, if they can, think that the trade policy of the previous 40 years is unconnected.

Protectionism is poorly defined. Some call the raising of tariffs "protectionist". Others include increasing subsidies for local producers as protectionism. Any trade-distorting government intervention in the economy, other than tax decreases, is considered protectionist by neoliberals.

The term is not really that useful in the current context, but references to it are growing nonetheless.

We shall eventually delve deeper into the rise of the far right and the role of sophisticated populist propaganda programs, an alignment of tech companies to a particularly vulgar and dystopian Utopianism of the American libertarian, and what can only be described as the joint crisis of mental health and poverty that results from policies aimed at punishing the poor working class. But first, how do we situate ourselves within this discussion on trade policy?

The rise of the far right is fuelled by liberal economic policies that have undermined investment in industrial development in the "advanced capitalist countries" and the resulting shift in employment. It never seemed very "advanced" to allow industrial jobs, which are the basis of value production, to be moved away from places benefiting from their establishment (let's put aside the Organic Composition of Capital for a moment and just focus on trade.)

Similarly, it has always been strange to identify advanced capitalism in countries where we supposedly also have a hollowing-out of industrial production and a rise of the "service economy" – a ridiculous term that pretends you can have only half an economy and still be functional.

If you are a capitalist, it is just plain old regular capitalism: You move your production from high-wage areas to low-wage areas and reap the profits. The "advanced" aspect that was promoted by OECD liberals, along with the convenient myth of "free trade" being good for the people of the planet, was just political cover for advancing capitalism everywhere else.

After 50 years of this policy framework, the current moment comes as a bit of whiplash to centrist liberals.

The critique of neoliberalism isn't new to us. What is new is its use by the right: Those who formerly opposed "protectionist" policies now claim to support them.

It is mostly rhetoric, of course. We can see it in the USA, Italy, Argentina, New Zealand, and Canadian provinces where far-right politicians look more and more like regular Tories on economic policy when in power. This is not by mistake. The far right is national-corporatist in its economic ideology.

Looking closer, however, we see a common thread running through their economic programs. While these vary from country to country, what distinguishes them from regular centre-right liberal programs is that they call for subsidies for national corporations.

Far-right politicians play favourites. There are many reasons for this, such as owing favours to their direct corporate backers, having personal relationships with company heads who are ideologically aligned, and old-fashioned graft. The outcome is a shift in policies that transfer wealth upward in a rather unsophisticated way. Tax breaks that target favoured industries, procurement gifts, privatization to specific groupings of companies, and tariffs that arrive without being part of a broad industrial program.

Why should we revisit this aspect of the far right?

Because unless we identify the specifics of the cynical economic politics of the far-right program, workers will not be able to tell the difference between a far-right profit subsidy disguised as policy to "bring production back" and a progressive industrial strategy as supported by the left.

Our focus should be on clearly criticizing profit subsidies to distinguish the left from the far-right (assuming that the left actually develops an industrial strategy that does not rely solely on profit subsidies).

According to all the economic statistics that matter to workers, we are in a stable and seemingly permanent recession. On-paper wealth accumulation tied to the consumption of ever-cheaper goods has ended and is not likely to return. This last veneer of "advanced capitalism" – that it's policies were working – has worn off. Anger has set in (as stated above, for a variety of additional reasons).

The reasons for the turn to the far right are clear. We must clearly promote the original program of the left to give workers an alternative to simply casting protest votes for the right. The alternative should promote industrial production, value creation, redistribution of that value using the tools of the state, and democratic control over our work.

My fear is that without a clear vision of how to escape the current permanent recession and rapidly increasing wealth inequality, the far right will cynically turn to imperialist conflict. As history tells us, war is the ultimate end of far-right xenophobic policy.