In his column in today’s New York Times, David Brooks argues that one reason George W. Bush (along with colleagues in Japan, Britain, France, Italy and Germany) has such low approval ratings is that “voters rightly sense that leaders lack the authority to address problems.” It ain’t the late 1940s, when Dean Acheson and the gang could run the world, says Brooks.
In that regard, it’s worth noting the numbers just released by the Pew Research Center on attitudes toward the economy, which has emerged as the number one issue of concern to voters. The recent Pew survey finds that a sizable majority of Americans across the spectrum do actually believe that the federal government has the power to fix the economy. Bush’s numbers aren’t low because voters think he lacks authority to address problems; they’re low because voters aren’t happy with his policies.
There is a larger problem, however, reflected in the Pew numbers, and they remind us how politics intruded on the Doha round. It wasn’t just India and China showing what Brooks calls “parochial interests.” It also reflects the politics of trade in the United States, as we also saw earlier this year with respect to the free trade pact with Colombia. In the Pew survey approximately 65% of respondents (regardless of party), believe the global economy is having a negative impact on the United States. And as the next president does try to fix America’s economic problems, those kinds of numbers and thus the politics of trade are going to make that effort that more difficult.
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In trying to understand the politics of trade in the US, don’t we need definitions of “free trade” and “free markets,” as well as “globalization” to understand the arguments?
In reading Brooks’ column more carefully, I note a term he may have coined:
“Globosclerosis”
that he does not seem to define. He emphasizes that George W’s low ratings are not as low as some other world leaders, perhaps suggesting that George W may not be so bad after all. And he ends up sort of “approving” John McCain, and some unidentified Democrats, for the League of Democracies approach to the problem addressed by his column.
Brooks is a piece of work, clutching at straws, to build a straw house in support of McCain. Expect Obama to huff and puff.
But League of Democracies? Might this lead to another Cold War, or an even hotter one?
Shrag –
When most folks, particularly pundits like Brooks, talk about “free” trade they mean low tariffs/ntb’s on agricultural and manufactured goods. “Free”-trade agreements (particularly bilateral) only lower barriers for these types of goods, but rarely for services. And most “F”TA’s actually increase protections for intellectual property. Good rule of thumb: when journalists or politicians talk about “free” trade, they really only mean lower barriers for stuff that folks with low human capital make. Those of us with high human capital in the US have some pretty sweet barriers to trade for the products we produce: the AMA and the bar associations are essentially cartels, not to mention some very difficult visa hurdles foreigners have to jump to take our jobs. If Brooks want to criticize “parochial interests,” the most distortionary are not rich country farmers, but rich country doctors, lawyers, journalists, and academics who benefit from very high barriers to entry.
Here here Joe. Dean Baker hammers on this point repeatedly, but I think it’s definitely something worth trying to get into the public consciousness. Conservatives (like Brooks) try to pretend that the moral authority is 100% on their side, and it’s just people sadly dislocated by the creative destruction of globalization who can’t see the light of such glorious benefits for society at the end of the tunnel. Really what they’re arguing for though is taking protection away from those who make things they want to buy, but not from themselves or their friends…
Brooks’s column is flawed (to put it mildly) and the League of Democracies is a bad idea, as I argue at more length on my blog (see post entitled “David Brooks misses Dean Acheson; I miss sanity”).
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