Cafe Hayek - Latest Comments in Neologism

Re: Neologism

Swimmy — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 12:14:38 -0000

I dislike "neo-mercantilists" because it suggests there is some substantial difference between the modern position and the original mercantilists.

In defense of protectionism (the word, not the ideology): The question, "Who's against being protected?" is easy enough to answer. I am! Especially since we're discussing protection from competition. It would be better to find a word which conveys this sense of protection from a good thing, but protectionist is literally appropriate.

"Comprotectionist"? "Wall-builder" is interesting, conjures a few images of Berlin. "Laissez-phobe" has a really nice ring.

Re: Neologism

Russell Nelson — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 11:29:06 -0000

nunyabidnes: clearly you are one of the people to whom I was refering, otherwise you wouldn't be so ofended. By the way, Russell is speled with two of the leter L's. Ever considered cuting-n-pasting since your brain is so smal it can't hold two L's at the same time? Words lok funy when you leave out repeated leters, don't they?

Re: Neologism

Bill — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 10:59:39 -0000

Give them their historical due: Colbertists

Re: Neologism

Kent Gatewood — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 09:22:17 -0000

1. We run a 6% trade deficit. Judging by results, we are the least mercantilist economy on the planet.

2. Should we be discussing the Japanese, the Germans, the Chinese, the Dutch, the Russians...?

3. The Germans initially went around the Maginot Line. We got stuck against the Seigfreid Line for months.

Re: Neologism

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Re: Neologism

chinaski — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 08:39:01 -0000

How about AFTers? ( Anti-Free-Traders)

Re: Neologism

Randy — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 08:38:43 -0000

Paranoid

Re: Neologism

Lee — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 07:49:20 -0000

Well, I like to think of protectionism (obstructionism or whatever) as a kind of supernatural mysticism, resulting in the position that arbitrary lines drawn on a map have the magical capacity to alter the consequences of free trade.

Re: Neologism

Fundamentalist — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 07:42:53 -0000

Laissez-phobic?

Re: Neologism

Fundamentalist — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 07:40:49 -0000

Obstructionists isn't bad. Also, how about reactionaries or regressives? Also, there's trade Amish.

The emotion behind opposition to free trade comes from the false conviction that one nation can enrich itself only at the expense of another, which is a medieval idea. We could call them medievalists.

Re: Neologism

Doug Murray — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 07:39:33 -0000

I like Steven Horowitz's "privilige seeking" but it doesn't sound like something likely to catch on outside academia. But that's a start.

"Monopolism" probably wouldn't resonate as most people see a monopoly as applying to a single company, not an industry.

I'd suggest making use of a term that's already widespread among politicians and journalists - Corporate Welfare.

Re: Neologism

save_the_rustbelt — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 07:37:25 -0000

I can't resist.

"Tenure"

Re: Neologism

Rafal Smigrodzki — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 07:15:50 -0000

The term should ideally be self-explanatory, using homey down-to-earth English rather than foreign-sounding jawbreakers, and at the same time have clearly negative connotations. I would suggest "trade-bashers", since generally "trade" is inoffensive or even mildly positive, therefore those who bash it must be mean.

Re: Neologism

Timothy — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 07:08:03 -0000

I've always been fond of "mercantilist" or "neomercantilist" but that might be a little to obscure and also innocent sounding.

Re: Neologism

Marcel — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 06:58:46 -0000

"Hamperists"?

Re: Neologism

nunyabidness — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 06:29:08 -0000

Russel Nelson:

As usual, your "erudite, clever & witty" (Sarcasm here) commentary exposes the very nature of your person: petty, cheap, shallow, callous and childish. Keep up the good work - you never fail to expose your true self!

Maybe we should use the term RusselWit as an insult - it would sure be accurate.

Re: Neologism

OregonJon — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 06:23:43 -0000

"Wall Builders".

As in the Great Wall of China (that sure worked!) or the Maginot Line (another success story). Walls, whether in war or in trade, never work.

Re: Neologism

Lee — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 06:22:26 -0000

Anand - "Evolution happens because of us, not despite us."

Actually, evolution happens because of us *and* despite us. There is no escape from the evolutionary algorithm.

Re: Neologism

Greg — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 06:06:03 -0000

Or "monopolists" would work, too...

Re: Neologism

Greg — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 06:04:47 -0000

I've always liked "Neo-Mercantilists."

Re: Neologism

Howard Baetjer Jr. — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 05:35:09 -0000

"Obstructionists." I second Lee.

Re: Neologism

John Konop — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 05:19:57 -0000

You are the poster child for this article.

Illegal Immigration: A Rich American’s Game

This is one of the best articles I have ever read about explaining the core issue behind illegal immigration. Congress has formed an unholy alliance with the lobbyist money changers in Washington to sell out small business and the middle class. Please read this article and tell me what you think.

By Froma Harrop

RCP-There’s a popular game in America that goes, I’ll cut your wages, but you don’t cut mine. And the outsourcing of your factory job to China is a good thing, because it makes my paycheck go further at Wal-Mart. We hear this theme a lot in the debate over illegal immigration.

Consider the recent raids on Swift meat-processing plants. Federal agents arrested 1,187 illegal immigrants at facilities in six states. Mere hours later, economists warned that depriving the industry of illegal labor could raise hamburger prices.

Illegal immigration is usually presented as a win-win situation: Undocumented foreigners earn far more than they could back home. Consumers get a bargain.

Nowhere to be seen are America’s working poor who get stomped on 13 different ways. They have to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs and housing. Low-skilled natives and legal immigrants also end up subsidizing the undocumented because they tend to live in the same communities, which must provide hospitals, police, schools and garbage pickup.

Who doesn’t suffer from illegal

immigration? For starters, the people who write about it. I speak of the journalism profession, which has the habit of covering the issue by anecdotes. Reporters thrive on sympathetic stories about illegal immigrants who work hard and go to church

But, were a busload of illegals from Australia to turn up at their newspaper and offer reportage at 10 percent below the going rate, the writers would call the authorities so fast that your head would spin. And the publisher’s argument that thanks to the cheap Australians, he’s able to trim a few cents off the newsstand price would make no impression.

As it turns out, the meat-processing companies that employ so many illegal immigrants have been enjoying a nearly 50-percent discount on what was the going rate. In 1980, the average meat-processing job paid $19 an hour. The companies then moved their plants to rural areas, far from the Midwest cities and their unions. The industry’s wages now average about $9 an hour.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce likes to wail about the “labor shortage.” It says there aren’t enough chambermaids, dishwashers, etc. to work for its members at lousy wages. Odd, but when there’s a shortage of labor — or anything else — doesn’t the price of it go up? The price of unskilled labor in the United States hasn’t gone up. It’s gone down. Because of immigration, American-born high-school dropouts experienced a 5-percent loss in wages during the ’80s and ’90s, according to a study by Harvard economist George Borjas.

For some reason, the job of keeping prices low has fallen entirely on the shoulders of the most vulnerable Americans. If we banged down CEO compensation and sliced lawyers’ pay by a third, the same thing would happen. Everyone’s prices would drop. The corporation could sell its products for less, and the cost of legal services would fall.

No vocation keeps a tighter lid on immigration than the medical profession. “If we let in 100,000 immigrant doctors,” Richard Freeman, another Harvard economist, recently told a group of journalists, “everyone in this room would benefit.” Except the American doctors.

Suggest a U.S. labor policy that depresses professional pay as a means of keeping prices in check, and you get laughed out of the room. But say that sitting on the wages of unskilled factory workers stems inflationary pressure — a frequently made argument — and the PhDs quietly nod in agreement.

And that’s how the game is played. High pay for me. Low pay for you. The folks at the economic bottom are obviously not making the rules

Re: Neologism

John Konop — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 05:16:03 -0000

John Dewey

Please do not let facts get in the way of your argument about slave labor. I notice you avoided how the father of free economics warned about the right of labor to negotiate.I Am sure you are smart enough to understand if you pit workers against worker with no right you delude their rights I guess the facts do not fit your world view.

Preface - Made In China.

Fateful decisions made by China’s leaders, limiting births to mostly males and forbidding farmers to tap shrinking reservoirs diverted to smog-choked cities could lead to internal strife and foreign conquest as this economic powerhouse reaches the limits of explosive growth. But US consumers continue to fund China’s military modernization, even as they erode their own economy and employment at home. Even worse, Wal-Mart shoppers are supporting forced labor camps where the healthiest inmates are executed for “organ harvesting”. Wal-Mart also buys heavily from slave labor manufacturing zones, where women workers are typically paid 3 cents an hour or less for 70 to 90-hour work weeks. See smuggled photos here. And please don’t buy any products “Made In China”.

http://www.willthomas.net/C...

Re: Neologism

Mike — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:50:21 -0000

Neo-Luddites?

Sirens?

Hammerheads? (i.e. you agree to stop hitting yourself in the head with a hammer and I'll agree to do the same)

Harbor Police?

Re: Neologism

Steven Horwitz — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:47:44 -0000

Don,

The most apt description is "rent-seekers" but given the problems with that rather confusing term, why not go to the heart of the matter?

"Privilege seekers"

After all, that is what those who lobby for protectionist legislation are doing and the nattering nabobs (or is that naDobbs?) who support it are ultimately arguing that some people should have privileges that others shouldn't.

To the degree that Americans still believe that unearned privileges are a bad thing, using the term in a derogatory way might resonate.

And, side note, there is NOTHING un-Hayekian about attempting to introduce a new word, anymore than it's un-Hayekian to innovate in the spontaneous order of the market.