54 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 18 September 2009:
The notion that tariffs were designed to protect American labour has always been a fraud, a propaganda ploy for public consumption. At the same time that the Lincolnites put in the “protective tariff” that lasted until FDR they also passed a contract labour law by which the government facilitated bringing in gangs of low-paid labour from Europe and China. If one wanted to protect American labour then it was necessary to control immigration, which labour leaders then understood. The industrialists also spearheaded abolition of slavery in the South because they believed that cotton could be produced more cheaply with “free labour.”
At the same time they pushed for giving away as much of the public lands as possible for free, mostly to themselves, because land sales were the second largest source of government revenue. Decreasing the revenue from lands gave an excuse for increases in tariffs and other taxes to benefit the plutocracy.
The history of American state capitalism goes back a long way and to restore Harding/Coolidge protectionism is too superficial a remedy.
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