Tarrifs and luxuries

I’ve been exposed to a lot of liberal discourse about tarrifs lately. Without getting into a whole digression about nations and borders, I want to articulate more specific points of disagreement with some of the (often implicit) arguments I’ve seen:

• Most — nearly all — people in the global North need to consume significantly less than they do
• Globally, industrial production should decrease
• Of the remaining production, more should happen closer to the sites of consumption
• Byzantine global supply chains only “work” because they exploit labor and the environment

Many folks seem unable to conceive of a life where they consume less while not living under conditions of miserable austerity. This ideological blind spot is going to wind up thrusting us all into miserable austerity.

I would much rather spend half as much time engaged in compulsory labor than drive a fancier fucking car, or spend a couple years on sabbatical — so that I could meander around the globe — than take more frequent jet trips to some resort (where poor people wait on me). Wouldn’t you? If not, I hope you can at least see that nearly everyone benefits if we’re given these options.

Unfortunately, these nonconsumptive luxuries are “bad for the ‘economy’”. Not only are we denied having them, it feels radical just to want them.

Back to the liberal tarrif-haters: I’m seeing people actually celebrate the delicate supply chain upon which our society has grown dependent. It is not good or cool that commodities are getting shipped across the globe several times over just because all the externalized costs allow capitalists to save a few pennies by doing this. You don’t have to be a “protectionist” to prefer localized production or recognize that importing tons of crap that nobody needs is unsustainable.

Home