SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: “The conflict in fact is between the western colonialist system and everyone who rejects colonial subjugation.

https://x.com/apocalypseos/status/2089081109858714053

Alex Krainer (@NakedHedgie
) draws the sharpest possible line: the real conflict is not between nations, but between two opposing systems of economic governance. One is the British free-trade system of extraction, concentration of wealth, and forever wars. The other is the national system of political economy — the American System of Hamilton, Clay, Lincoln and Henry C. Carey.

“The conflict in fact is between the western colonialist system and everyone who rejects colonial subjugation. The war in Ukraine, war against Iran, genocide of the Palestinian people, the buildup to the war on China, the uncontrolled migrations, and many other social, political, and economic crises are all merely different battlefields of the same great conflict.  

What are these two opposed systems of economic governance?  

One is the British system of free trade. The other is the national system of political economy. It is often referred to as the American system because it was pioneered by American leaders like Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln’s chief economic adviser, Henry C. Carey.  

In a nutshell, the national system seeks to create protective barriers to foreign trade in order to give domestic manufacturing a fighting chance against foreign competition. It also accumulates capital at home, investing it into manufacturing, infrastructure, education, research and development, innovation, culture, and other uses that raise society’s standards of living.  

By contrast, the British system of free trade extracts wealth and concentrates it. It seeks to remove all barriers to the worldwide free flow of capital, always in pursuit of the highest possible return. With free trade, nations are obliged to compete for investment capital by systematically depressing wages, job security, pensions, healthcare services, and education. Other costs which cut into returns on capital are infrastructure development, social spending programs, and protection of the environment. Therefore, competing for investment capital entails progressive slashing of all these cost items down to the bare bones. In that sense, the British free trade system amounts to a competitive race to the bottom.  

In his 1851 book The Harmony of Interests, Abraham Lincoln’s economic adviser Henry Carey contrasted the two systems, opening with the words: ‘Two systems are before the world.’  

Carey’s prose is rather long, but it could be summarized along seven key dimensions:  

1. Trade versus production. One system directs capital and draws labor towards trade and speculation. This tends to depress wages and erode prosperity. The other system fosters production of goods, services, and infrastructure. It leads to higher wages and rising standards of living.  

2. Raw materials versus finished goods. One system favors mass production of raw materials and cash crops for trade. It systematically impoverishes farmers and reduces their employment. The other system favors production of more refined, high-quality products, enriching their producers.  

3. Exporting produce versus enjoying it at home. One system sends mass-produced bulk abroad, sometimes even causing famines in the producing economy. The other system organizes labor to satisfy domestic demand and produce an abundance of diverse high-quality products at home.  

4. Concentration versus dispersion of wealth. One system concentrates wealth and power in a few hands in great commercial cities while depleting and impoverishing the rest of the nation. The other system enriches those engaged in production and disperses wealth more evenly across society.  

5. War versus moral and educational growth. One system compels the productive sector to fund fleets and armies. The other directs the same means for moral and intellectual growth of the people in their nations.  

6. Stable communities versus population replacement. One system requires a large low-skilled labor force that accepts work with low wages. It predictably resorts to a mass influx of immigrants. The other system raises the standards of living, prosperity, and security of the native labor force.  

7. Universal war versus universal peace. One system gives rise to universal forever wars. The other strives to preserve peace.  

Let’s condense these seven points even further.  

One system favors production of raw commodities in bulk. It lowers living standards, concentrates wealth in few hands, impoverishes the workforce, and favors population replacement, militarization and forever wars. This is the British system of free trade.  

The other system favors production of diverse quality products at home, enriches their producers, raises the standards of living, disperses wealth, fosters stable communities and favors stability and peace. This is the national system of political economy — or the American system.  

Its aspiration is sovereignty and independence. Free trade’s aspiration is globalization and unipolar hegemony.  

The contrast between the two systems could not be any starker, and the record entirely validates the way Henry Carey characterizes them. And we’ll see from actual historical examples where one system or the other was implemented and from the ways that they changed the societies in question.”

Two systems are before the world. One produces prosperity and peace. The other produces poverty, migration and perpetual war. The choice remains.