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Sunday, July 04, 2010

Patriotism, Nationalism, and Economic Policy

How patriotic should economic policies be? (dual posted):

Patriotism, Wikipedia: Patriotism is love and devotion to one's country. The word comes from the Greek patris, meaning fatherland. Patriotism, however, has had different meanings over time, and its meaning is highly dependent upon context, geography, and philosophy. Although patriotism is used in certain vernaculars as a synonym for nationalism, nationalism is not necessarily considered an inherent part of patriotism. Among the ancient Greeks, patriotism consisted of notions concerning language, religious traditions, ethics, law, and devotion to the common good, rather than pure identification with a nation-state. Scholar J. Peter Euben writes that for the Greek philosopher Socrates, "patriotism does not require one to agree with everything that his country does and would actually promote analytical questioning in a quest to make the country the best it possibly can be." ...
During the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, the notion of patriotism continued to be separate from the notion of nationalism. Instead, patriotism was defined as devotion to humanity and beneficence. For example, providing charity, criticizing slavery, and denouncing excessive penal laws were all considered patriotic. In both ancient and modern visions of patriotism, individual responsibility to fellow citizens is an inherent component of patriotism.
Many contemporary notions of patriotism are influenced by 19th century ideas about nationalism. During the 19th century, "being patriotic" became increasingly conflated with nationalism and even jingoism. However, some notions of contemporary patriotism reject nationalism in favor of a more classic version of the idea of patriotism which includes social responsibility.
Contemporary scholar of ethics, Paul Gomberg,... argues that the primary implication of patriotism in ethical theory is that a person has more moral duties to fellow members of the national community, than to non-members. Patriotism is therefore selective in its altruism. Gomberg notes the view (in ethics) that moral duties apply equally to all humans, which is known as cosmopolitanism. ...

When we think about issues such as immigration and international trade, how important should "cosmopolitan" influences be? Should we ever place, say, the elimination of poverty in underdeveloped countries above our own interests, or is our duty always first and foremost to ourselves? There is a theory that says pursuing our own interests indirectly maximizes the interests of everyone -- the metaphor of an invisible hand is used to illustrate this -- but the conditions for this result to hold aren't always present.

I recently said:

while I think the US should consider the welfare of other countries when implementing policy..., the Fed has made it clear that's not how it operates.

So I think that, when formulating economic policy, our concerns ought to extend beyond our borders. That's not to say that the interests ought to be weighted equally, so I'm not "cosmopolitan" in that sense, but I don't think the weight on external concerns ought to be zero either. I would give it meaningful weight. But not everyone agrees. For example, As Alan Krueger says with respect to immigration policy


This is not a new debate. It is expressed here in terms of immigration, but it is easy to generalize the arguments to economic policy more generally:

Greg Mankiw and Brad DeLong talk about libertarian, egalitarian, and cosmopolitan explanations for why economists do or do not support immigration. Here's Brad's post:

Greg Mankiw Explains Why Economists Favor Immigration: He does it very very well:

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Why Economists Like Immigration: With members of the House and Senate sparring over immigration reform, it is worth summarizing why most economists are sympathetic with the more welcoming approach of the Senate bill.

The study of economics leaves a person with two strong impulses:






I would add a third impulse: the cosmopolitan impulse. Economists tend to think that foreigners are people, and thus that their well-being counts. From the economist's point of view, increasing immigration is a hell of a powerful global economic development policy. The most you can say for restricting immigration is that it is an extremely costly and relatively ineffective domestic anti-poverty policy.

Greg says the libertarian and egalitarian impulses, "are reinforcing" and that is why "economists ... offer a relatively united view ... on immigration."... I would qualify this discussion slightly along Brad's lines. It depends upon your utility function, and that is another way to frame the impulse to support, or not to support, immigration. If you are a person, economist even, who cares deeply about the poor anywhere in the world irrespective of borders, the benefits of low-skill immigration will look quite different than they will to someone who believes our allegiance is to our own poor and our own citizens first and foremost. From a policymaker's perspective, what should U.S. policy address, the welfare of poor anywhere in the world which may represent the preferences of constituents, or should U.S. economic policy attempt only to maximize the welfare of U.S. citizens?

What do you think? What does "patriotism" require? I like the older definition of patriotism better than the one that equates it with nationalism ("devotion to the common good, rather than pure identification with a nation-state"), but how it's defined is part of the issue.

    Posted by on Sunday, July 4, 2010 at 11:34 AM in Development, Economics, International Trade | Permalink  Comments (62)

