Eric is very, very smart and knows lots of economics. Here is his first post; excerpt:
The busy international legal activity that occurred during the
post-Cold War era – the establishment of international courts, the
involvement of the Security Council, the advance of international trade
law – will slow down and perhaps even reenter the deep freeze into
which it was shunted during the Cold War. The irony is that liberal
internationalism could advance only as long as the United States was
the sole superpower and in the mood to advance it.
Yes, but the type of liberal internationalism that Posner recognizes was acceptable only as long as it was subservient to the whims of the American nation-state. That goes far toward explaining post-Cold War opposition to it.
Much better would have been a return to the type of liberal internationalism that existed in the pre-Wilson world. But that was never on the table.
Yeah, but except for the setbacks to international trade law, aren’t these good things? Looks like a 2-1 win to me.
What’s the matter with Thomas Frank?
At least Frank is coherent.
Notice that he is careful to tone down Lincoln’s “right-wing orthodoxy” to “free-market orthodoxy.” He is not as rabid as the other critics.
I think this is pretty established in political science – Hegemonic theory of free trade, ie one superpower has to give concessions in free trade in order to prevent the prisoner’s dilemma of protectionism from taking over.
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