How Economic Nationalism Bites Back Thursday, January 17, 2013
Does protectionism work? In the late 19th century, British
writers were as concerned about loss of markets and jobs to
Germany as many Americans are today about competition from
China. The campaign against rising Germany shows that economic
nationalism can have unintended consequences. One of that
campaign’s most striking failures, now largely forgotten, was
recently recalled by the German weekly Die Zeit on the 125th
anniversary of the notorious “Made in Germany” campaign. Ever
since Bismarck’s German coalition defeated France and
established a newly unified nation, Germany had a reputation for
cheap mass manufacturing and aggressive pricing. At the time,
Britain was not only Germany’s biggest trading partner but, in
German eyes, the superpower with which the new Reich had to
achieve parity. For all the prestige of French civilization,
Britannia still ruled for many continental Europeans. The new
Reich’s unofficial national anthem, “Heil dir im S