CHAPTER I

WHAT IS ECONOMIC NATIONALISM?

I

C. K. Ogden, the great semanticist and inventor of “Basic English”, is reported to have commented on the saying: “words are convenient noises” by remarking that no more than one thousand of them have any precise meaning. This is particularly true of words relating to human affairs! The reason for this unsatisfactory state of affairs is not hard to find.

CHAPTER II

ECONOMIC NATIONALISM, COLLECTIVISM AND LIBERALISM

I

Collectivism, as has been stressed above, is at the very roots of economic nationalism in the more restricted sense of that term. But what exactly is collectivism? To define it and its opposite, liberalism, and to examine their respective relations to economic nationalism is the next task before us. Since the terms involved are typically among the “dynamite words” referred to at the beginning of Chapter I, definitions are clearly essential.

CHAPTER III

ECONOMIC NATIONALISM THROUGH THE AGES

I

The present chapter serves a modest yet important purpose: that of placing the phenomenon of economic nationalism in its historical setting; for thus only, I believe, it is possible fully to measure its significance in our own day.

PART II

PROPONENTS OF ECONOMIC NATIONALISM, PAST AND PRESENT

SECTION I

THE INHERITANCE FROM THE PAST

CHAPTER IV

THE MERCANTILIST HERITAGE

I

Two major revolutions against mercantilism took place in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. One of them, highlighted by the Boston Tea-Party of December 16, 1773, led to the formation of the United States of America.

CHAPTER V

FICHTE’S BLUEPRINT FOR AUTARKY

It is the principal conclusion of the studies underlying the present book that, in our age, collectivism is the mainspring of economic nationalism. While, historically, this link is of relatively recent origin, analytically it goes back over a century and a half. Its blueprint was the child of the fertile mind of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) and appears in a relatively obscure tract, published in 1800 by that famous German philosopher under the intriguing title, The Closed Commercial State.1

SECTION II

TWENTIETH CENTURY DOCTRINE

CHAPTER VI

THE ECONOMIC NATIONALISM OF JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

I

The mercantilist heritage and Fichte’s blueprint for an isolated and collectivist state are both greatly honoured in the deeds of the contemporary world. The extent of the impact of these ideas upon the doctrines of our times can best be gauged through the writings of John Maynard (later Lord) Keynes, the most controversial and, beyond any doubt, the most influential political economist of the second quarter of the twentieth century.

CHAPTER VII

ECONOMIC NATIONALISM SINCE WORLD WAR II: COLLECTIVIST PLANNING AND ECONOMIC NATIONALISM

I

At this final stage of our discussion a further short excursion into semantics appears indicated as a supplement to the analysis of basic concepts proposed in Chapters I and II. I use in the title of the present chapter the term “collectivist planning”, rather than “economic planning”, in order to forestall a possible misunderstanding.

APPENDIX

INTRODUCTION

It has been suggested to me that I include in an Appendix a selection from the fairly large number of articles scattered through many journals, magazines and symposiums, which I have devoted over the past two decades to the problem of economic nationalism, its nature, causes and cures. The idea was tempting and it was dangerous. It is tempting to recover some of one’s past writings now largely inaccessible; but it is dangerous, too, to re-serve old dishes which have possibly long since lost such flavour as they once may have possessed!