I would agree that our trade arrangements are neither entirely liberalized nor balanced, but even if China did not impose tariffs and we did not have managed trade the problems would be much the same. The trade deficit might be somewhat smaller, but the basic profile of our economy is one of a net importer and that wouldn’t substantially change even if we enjoyed the libertarians’ nirvana of “real,” mutual free trade.

Yes, I think it is, but the relevant question is whether any of the democratic elements of either polity made it less likely to go to war. The theory is that making government accountable to the people who have to fight and die in the war will make wars less likely, because an electorate is going to be wary about sending its sons off to die, but this is disproved time and again. In the heat of the moment during a pre-war crisis, it is the just as often the public that is calling for war and the government that is trying to avoid it rather than the other way around.

On the contrary, I would argue that it was the democratic character of both the Union and Confederacy that made mass mobilization and prolonged, near-total conflict not only possible but virtually inevitable once the fighting began. The same goes for WWI. Democratic politics does not nothing to guard against policies being driven by passion and ideology, but rather makes governments more susceptible to both. The escalation of nationalist and pro-war sentiment during the July crisis was driven by the demands of crowds and mass media. Democratic elements in government certainly do not make wars between democracies less likely. If anything, they seem to make wars harder to avoid once an impasse has been reached, because each government then has to answer to the angry mob that has been riled up in the meantime.

I’ve often commented on the not infrequent shoplifting rings on ebay with 99%+ positive ratings. They are cheaper than even WalMart since they get their products from there but without paying for them. Is that “free trade”? I hope even most libertarians would say no.

But China has an expansionary monetary policy and crony-loans to oligarchs which steal land to build factories and don’t care about killing workers (there seems to be an infinite supply of them) or dumping toxic waste into local rivers. This, unfortunately, is called “comparative advantage” and “free trade”.

There is and always will be a local advantage when it comes to almost everything when laws are supporting free trade instead of the managed, subsidized, regulated trade. My local credit union has better interest rates at both loans and deposits – and they tend not to do evil things (Chase recently imposed a $10/mo fee on most cardholders with excellent FICO scores). The local credit union is your neighbor. You may see the loan officer or teller at church.

Produce is fresher from farmer’s markets.

In John Paul II’s theology of the body, he draws the sharp distinction between things which can be used, and persons which aren’t to be used.

Trade is unifying when done between persons. It is fragmenting when done anonymously – for the complaint against a fraud will be just as anonymous and uncaring as a good product received.

Most people will not knowingly injure people or exploit them. Globalism tends to create a homogenious mass instead of a homosapient mass. Do I care if some amorphous blob has toxic substances? Do I care if the person which made the trinket is watching her children get sick and die?

I’m from the Detroit area. Should I care if those laid off out west have to drive in their Toyotas and Hondas (much less BMWs and Mercedes) to the unemployment office? Should I care if they lose money to media piracy? Perhaps, but only as much they care about the auto workers, which I usually see talked about in derisive terms.

If someone can’t bother to “buy American”, it isn’t that much of a leap to “pirate American” or “steal American”. The person will lose their job in either case.

I can’t save the world. Maybe I can help a starving child in Africa (but even there, our old clothing and food disrupts local textile and farming maybe making things worse). But I can help those around me and locally, and with small degrees of separation.

If the doctrine of subsidiarity is to be believed, I am responsible first for my family, then my village or street, then my city or county, then state or province, then nation, and only lastly and at the proper distance, the world.

Goodbye cruel world, hello sympathetic but highly idiosyncratic village.

That might be the strong version, but the weaker version is that democracies are less likely to go to war with each other.

“The war between the Union and Confederacy makes a mockery of that argument.”

Do you believe it is pure coincidence that the last state to adopt universal (white) male suffrage,South Carolina, was the first to secede?

“In 1914, there was universal manhood suffrage and parliamentary elections in practically every belligerent state. If democracy is what brings peace to Europe, how could it have failed so dramatically and catastrophically in that case?”

Well, I would argue that there are many important structural differences between European governments today and those of 1914 that make war much less likely. It’s true that the existence of representative parliaments did little to make war less likely in 1914.

“I don’t think security guarantees to Georgia would guarantee Georgian security because we would never go to war over Georgia. ”

So it’s simply a matter of our honesty in the matter? If we gave Georgia nuclear weapons (i.e., made our security guarantee iron-clad), would that increase the chances of peace in the Caucasus?

I also can’t get too worked up over homogenization, over it’s proliferation or lack thereof. Protectionists and nativists see the same thing and draw whatever conclusions they wish.

That shared economic interests through trade creates, widens and escalates conflicts is illustrated by unconvincing example. This notion would need some significantly better documentation.

In 1914, there was universal manhood suffrage and parliamentary elections in practically every belligerent state. If democracy is what brings peace to Europe, how could it have failed so dramatically and catastrophically in that case?

I don’t think security guarantees to Georgia would guarantee Georgian security because we would never go to war over Georgia. They are empty promises, and therefore damaging to our real security guarantees to our European NATO allies. Credible NATO security guarantees kept the peace in Europe for almost fifty years. I oppose NATO expansion because it threatens to provoke Russian backlash and threatens the general peace of the continent.

Other than that, you’re on a roll.

“Theorists of democratic peace cannot make sense of the war between the two most thoroughly democratic polities of the mid-19th century (the Union and Confederacy), and theorists of an economic liberal peace cannot account for that war between two parts of what had been an enormous free trading zone.”

The three primary causes of the Civil War were, in order: slavery, undemocratic distribution of power within the Confederacy resulting in rule by slaveowning plantation owners at the expense of small freeholders, and tariffs. If you wanted an example that would support your assertion, you picked perhaps the worst one possible.

“One might as well craft a theory of international relations that cannot explain the origins of WWI–such a theory would be essentially useless. If shared economic interests through trade discourage certain conflicts (a British-American war over Venezuela in the 1890s, for instance), they create, widen and escalate others. Europe has not suffered another major continental war since 1945 in large part because it served as the effectively occupied territory of the superpowers for half a century, and continues to live under the protection of U.S. security guarantees ”

This is also puzzling. Europe has been peaceful not because of democracy, but because it was under the influence of globe-spanning hegemons? I fail to see why the latter would prima facie lead to greater peace than the former, nor do I really think you believe in that proposition. If American security guarantees led to peace in Europe, then why do you oppose extending them to Georgia? Because you (quite correctly) don’t think that American security guarantees lead to peace. Such an argument would go against what you have argued elsewhere. But if American security guarantees don’t lead to peace, we need to look elsewhere (at least in part) to explain European history since 1945.