Charles Dickens’s (1812-1870) stories about the under classes in Nineteenth Century England eloquently describe the dire consequences of Free Trade; it is a wretched history.
In 1820, the British Parliament passed a Statement of Principle supporting Adam Smith’s (1723-1790) doctrine of “absolute free-trade”. This legislation culminated in the repeal of the Corn Laws. These laws were passed following the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 at the urging of farmers and landowners in an effort to protect profitable prices for domestic grain producers.
In the mid-Nineteenth Century British power was astride the world. Her navy controlled the seas, her bankers controlled world finance, and her industry controlled the bulk of available raw materials. With the backing of an elite group of powerful bankers and traders intent on reaping huge rewards Tory Party leader Sir Robert Peel, in May, 1846, was successful in repealing the Corn Laws and setting the nation on a course of “absolute free trade”.
In his book “A Century of War” subtitled, “Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order” F. William Engdahl writes, “But the underlying purpose of the liberal elites of 19th century British government and public life was to preserve and serve the interests of an exclusive private power. In the last part of the 19th century, that private power was concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of bankers and institutions of the City of London.” Elsewhere he includes in this “exclusive private power: the Bank of England, Barings, Hambros, & Rothchilds.”
The removal of protection was devastating. English citizens and workers in other nations were adversely affected. Wage levels inside Britain fell precipitously as farmers were forced to compete with the Hindu peasants from Britain’s Indian colony and other of the world’s lowest paid workers. Engdahl describes the results; “Britain’s domestic agriculture and farmers were ruined by the loss of the Corn Laws protectionism. Irish farmers were emiserated, as their largest export market suddenly lowered food prices drastically, as a result of the corn Law repeal. The mass starvation and emigration of Irish peasants and their families in the late 1840s – the tragic Irish Potato Famine of 1845-6 and its aftermath – was a direct consequence of the ‘free trade’ policy of Britain.”
As the rich tillable soils of England and Ireland lay fallow and their farmers destitute, English merchants imported produce from India, Russia and other distant low wage locations. The motto became “buy cheap” and “sell dear”. Giant international London trading houses and merchant bankers that financed them reaped enormous profits.
With an echo to present day America, Henry Carey (1793-1879), a colonial American economist and advisor to President Lincoln wrote, “In England a large portion of the people can neither read nor write, and there is scarcely an effort to give them education. The colonial system looks to low wages, necessarily followed by an inability to devote time to intellectual improvement…Here lies the error of communism and socialism. They seek to compel union, and to force men to exchange with each other, the necessary effect of which is to sink the whole body to the level of those who are at the bottom.” Emphasis mine.
Now, early in the Twenty First Century, American power dominates the world and powerful elite industrialists and bankers, some with the same names as those of bygone England, are involved in procedures that transfer wealth from working people to the vaults of the elite.
America’s system of education has been in the process of dumbing-down her citizens for several decades. A large percentage of Americans (as high as 30%) are unable to read and write.
British writer Joseph Kay wrote of England, “where the aristocracy is richer and more powerful than any other country in the world, the poor are more oppressed, more pauperized, more numerous in comparison to the other classes, more irreligious and very much worse educated than the poor of (most) any other European nation…”
American citizens were being offended with an almost identical scenario in the late Twentieth Century. As our government strives to maintain global hegemony, a free trade policy is robbing the nation and its citizens of their wealth, decimating the middle class, and gutting our industrial base. Manufacturing facilities that formerly produced goods consumed domestically are wasting in idleness while international traders import the goods from low wage sources in Asia, Mexico and elsewhere.
As the weight of free trade pushes them down, American workers still cling to a moderate but declining standard of living. Both husband and wife work 60-hour weeks while the government taxes away half of their income. There is little time for family life or education. Our shoe factories in New England and our textile factories in the Carolinas lay as dormant as the rich English and Irish soils of antiquity. The mighty steel mills of Gary and Pittsburgh rust away and the technology that governed them deteriorates. Our stores are full of Chinese manufactured products and our largest new employers are restaurants. Harbor Freight and Dollar Stores, both stocked with Chinese products, are key retailers.
As the free trade juggernaut trampled on the quality of English life financial gurus manipulated the currency to their advantage. It was during this era that financiers found they could protect English gold by raising interest rates and as free trade drained her wealth England was force to raise rates to protect her supply of gold. America was in a similar situation in the late 1970s when in order to protect the dollar the government raised interest rates to almost twenty percent.
Henry Carey comparing the systems of colonial America with those of imperialistic England writes, “One looks to underworking the Hindoo and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace.”
Henry Carey’s influence on America is long gone and we now find ourselves well into the situation England experienced a century and a half ago.
Free trade propels everyone to the poorest, cheapest, and lowest in the world while protectionism works toward producing goods as close as possible to the consumer at a wage that allows a high standard of living for everyone.
Freedom of the individual to engage in trade at an international level as long as that trade does not jeopardize the nation should be the goal of every government but the exploitation of a nations resources and standard of living to create personal profit is a theft that warrants legal action.
National decisions to allow particular industries to migrate to other nations might be plausible if they were approved by those affected and were beneficial to the nation but legal initiatives that set the stage for moving domestic industries at the expense of the nation and American workers are criminal in both intent and practice.
Free traders reason from a trade perspective while Christians reason from a Godly perspective. At the Tower of Babel, God broke humanity into groups created by language. His dealings with Israel were at a national level. He brought up nations and brought down nations. Nations are of Godly construct. “Absolute Free Trade” is internationalist in concept. It breaks down national barriers and brings the living standard down to the lowest level.
A Great Depression hit Britain in 1873, and lasted until 1896.
If you doubt the seriousness of the problem, spend some time and read the links. History is a fine teacher and England was a fine example.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”