Emotionally I may agree with SJ to certain points, but patriotism has been proven not effective in protecting or promoting any nation’s industry. Extreme patriotism or protectionism is a game everyone can play, driven by national pride, the only response from targeted nations is to return the barriers with barriers of their own. When practiced in the past, lead to hot wars, trade wars and Depression.
Past wars and hatred also proved not to be long lasting. Japanese products are ever popular in China and China is one of Japan’s biggest market, second only to USA; Jewish owned businesses remain some of the biggest buyers of German made products, likewise as German car buyers. Last I read, Germany is Israel’s No.1 trading partner.
In the ‘70s and ‘80s, faced with the threat of reliable Japanese and German cars, American auto makers reinvented themselves to be highly productive with reliable and desirable automobiles. At a point in the ‘90s, American automakers actually surpassed the Japanese in productivity and quality (in few cases). That is the beauty of free enterprise and business competition. With no competition, we got fat and lazy; as in personal and business life, we get sharp and lean when faced with danger and competitions. .
That is the nature of free enterprise and free market, they are interdependent with the free and democratic society. All these are not my invention or fantasy but proven economic theory, and clearly stated in far better elegance in the recent best selling book “Commanding Heights” and the PBS 4 hours series “Commanding Heights”. It talks about and compares the difference between a free market and centrally controlled communist economies and how the West won, the Cold War was won by the free market system, not by the armies nor the bombers or ICBMs. It also discusses the deregulations within the US, UK and Europe in the past 2 decades.
Politicians talk about protecting our industries and workers with trade barriers during the elections, but none of them actually do anything about it once elected, because they know the talk gets votes but it cannot be done responsibly and selectively.
Just my humble opinion.
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