Volume 45, Number 15 · October 8, 1998
The New Demon
By Benjamin M. Friedman
The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Little, Brown, 376 pp., $22.95
The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That Is Remaking the Modern World
by Daniel Yergin, by Joseph Stanislaw
Simon and Schuster, 457 pp., $26.00
In his new book, ominously titled The Great Betrayal, Patrick Buchanan seeks to show that the economic difficulties and anxieties faced by working Americans today, including large parts of the middle class, are the result of free trade and the pressures of open competition in the world economy. More broadly, Mr. Buchanan argues that the progressive elimination of tariffs and other barriers to foreign trade during the post-World War II era is the chief force responsible for a great many of our nation's economic and social ills. The villains in his story—his book is as much about the politics of blame as the economics of practical solutions—are the 'transnational elites' and the politicians who do their bidding. His answer is protectionism, particularly in the form of new tariffs on goods produced by low-paid foreign labor.
Review, 6653 words
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