Douglas Irwin 商業衝突 美國貿易政策史

商業衝突 美國貿易政策史 832 頁

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo24475328.html

Douglas A. Irwin

達特茅斯學院經濟係社會科學 John Sloan Dickey 三世紀教授。他是 NBER 的研究員。

達特茅斯學院是美國新罕布什爾州漢諾威的一所私立常春藤聯盟研究型大學。達特茅斯由 Eleazar Wheelock 於 1769 年創立，是美國獨立戰爭前特許成立的九所殖民地學院之一。

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美國應該向其他國家開放貿易，還是應該保護國內產業免受外國競爭？這個問題一直是美國曆史上激烈政治衝突的根源。詹姆斯·麥迪遜在《聯邦黨人文集》中指出，這種衝突是不可避免的，因為貿易政策涉及經濟利益的衝突。貿易的贏家和輸家之間的鬥爭一直很激烈，因為美元和工作都岌岌可危：根據選擇的政策，一些行業、農民和工人將繁榮發展，而另一些行業、農民和工人將遭受損失。

道格拉斯·A·歐文的《商業衝突》是迄今為止美國貿易政策最權威、最全麵的曆史著作，清晰地描繪了塑造美國貿易政策的各種經濟和政治力量。從一開始，貿易政策就分裂了美國——首先是托馬斯·傑斐遜宣布對所有對外貿易實施禁運，然後是南卡羅來納州因進口稅過高而威脅脫離聯邦。內戰期間，貿易保護主義開始轉向，隨後不斷受到政治攻擊。然後，大蕭條期間對斯姆特霍利關稅的爭議導致政策轉向更自由的貿易，涉及最終產生世界貿易組織的貿易協定。歐文通過展示不同的經濟利益如何按地理區域分組來理解這段動蕩的曆史，這意味著每一項擬議的政策變化都會在國會找到支持者和反對者。

在特朗普政府考慮對美國貿易政策進行重大改變之際，歐文全麵的曆史視角有助於闡明當前的辯論。《商業衝突》經過深入研究，富有洞察力和細節，為美國過去和現在的貿易政策提供了寶貴而持久的見解。

目錄

簡介
第一部分：稅收
1. 爭取獨立的鬥爭，1763-1789 年
2. 新國家的貿易政策，1789-1816 年
3. 地區衝突和危機，1816-1833 年
4. 關稅和平與內戰，1833-1865 年
第二部分：限製
5. 關稅改革的失敗，1865-1890 年
6. 保護主義根深蒂固，1890-1912 年
7. 政策逆轉和漂移，1912-1928 年
8. 霍利-斯穆特關稅和大蕭條，1928-1932 年
第三部分：互惠
9. 新政和互惠貿易協定，1932-1943 年
10. 建立多邊貿易體係， 1943–1950
11. 新秩序和新壓力，1950–1979
12. 貿易衝擊和應對，1979–1992
13. 從全球化到兩極分化，1992–2017
結論
道格拉斯·A·歐文 (Douglas A. Irwin) 著《商業衝突：美國貿易政策史》
https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/spring/summer-2018/clashing-over-commerce-history-us-trade-policy-douglas-irwin?

2018 年春/夏 • CATO JOURNAL
作者：丹尼爾·J·伊肯森 ??(Daniel J. Ikenson) 丹尼爾·J·伊肯森 ??(Daniel J. Ikenson) 赫伯特·A·施蒂費爾貿易政策研究中心前主任
在唐納德·特朗普 (Donald Trump) 動蕩的總統任期的前 16 個月裏，貿易、關稅和美國在全球的角色等主題經濟問題在公眾中占據了顯著地位。盡管在 2017 年之前可能並不那麽明顯，但美國貿易政策的實施和後果——或許更重要的是圍繞它的誤解——長期以來一直激起人們的熱情。

這對達特茅斯經濟學教授道格拉斯·A·歐文來說並不是什麽新鮮事，他關於美國貿易政策史的最新論文詳細記錄了“關稅”如何引發激烈的政治、經濟和憲法辯論，並一直是從共和國成立到現在部門衝突的持續根源。

據歐文說，《商業衝突：美國貿易政策史》一書是為了填補一個明顯的空白而寫的。上一部出版的美國貿易政策史主要著作是 1931 年出版的《美國關稅史》第 8 版，作者是著名的哈佛貿易經濟學家弗蘭克·陶西格，他於 1916 年美國關稅委員會（美國國際貿易委員會的前身）成立時成為該委員會的第一任主席。正如歐文在《衝突》中巧妙地展示的那樣，自 1931 年以來，已經發生了許多貿易政策史。

但歐文並沒有從陶西格離開的地方開始。他從殖民時期開始，以確保他的讀者不僅了解美國貿易政策在塑造美國曆史進程方麵發揮了重要作用，而且了解英國的重商主義貿易政策

帝國的諸多政策——例如《航海法案》，禁止美國殖民地與其他國家之間的直接貿易，並要求所有貨物必須通過英國運輸——助長了日益高漲的反王室熱情，最終爆發革命，並催生了一個國家的誕生。

在引言中，歐文引用了《聯邦黨人文集》第 10 號，詹姆斯·麥迪遜在其中指出，每個社會都存在著相互競爭的經濟利益，他們對政府政策應該是什麽有著截然不同的看法。麥迪遜在提到我們今天所說的貿易政策製定過程時指出：

是否應該通過限製外國製造業來鼓勵國內製造業，以及在多大程度上鼓勵國內製造業？這些問題將由土地所有者和製造業階級以不同的方式決定，而且可能兩者都不會隻考慮正義和公共利益。…… 開明的政治家能夠調整這些相互衝突的利益，並使它們都服從於公共利益，這是徒勞的。

然而，歐文的廣泛論點是，盡管存在這些激烈的爭論以及由這種自身利益衝突產生的摩擦和衝突，但美國貿易政策在整個國家曆史上表現出了非凡的穩定性。歐文將這種穩定性歸因於經濟利益的地理連續性（例如賓夕法尼亞州的鋼鐵生產、肯塔基州的煙草種植、南卡羅來納州的紡織製造業）和三權分立（麥迪遜的傑作），這使得艱難的政策變化不太可能發生。“生產者利益、工會、倡導團體、公共知識分子，甚至總統都可以隨心所欲地要求、抗議、譴責和抱怨，”歐文寫道，“但要改變現有政策，需要國會多數票和行政部門的批準。如果投票不一致，現有政策就不會改變。”

事實上，歐文認為，美國貿易政策在曆史上僅發生過兩次實質性轉變，這兩次都是為了應對導致政治重新調整的外部衝擊——內戰和大蕭條。在這兩次衝擊所劃定的三個時期中，政策的連續性基本占了上風。但衝擊本身預示著美國貿易政策目標的全麵變化。歐文簡述道，這三個時期的目標按時間順序依次為“收入、限製和互惠”。

從 1787 年建國到內戰，關稅的主要目的是為一個幾乎沒有其他資金來源的溫和聯邦政府的運作籌集資金。這個時代早期的大部分爭論都是圍繞著“僅用於收入”的關稅應該有多高的問題。一些人擔心過高的關稅會擠壓外國人的收入，從而減少美國商品出口的市場。其他人則擔心聯邦政府投入過多資金會助長其擴張並侵犯各州的管轄權。事實上，這些擔憂是 1828 年令人憎惡的關稅和 1832 年南卡羅來納州廢除危機衝突的核心。關於後一個問題，歐文帶著一絲自豪指出，貿易政策非常重要，足以成為美國第一次重大憲法危機的催化劑。

雖然關稅在當時偶爾被用來保護國內工業，但直到內戰後，赤裸裸的保護主義才成為關稅的主要動機。內戰結束後，共和黨崛起，共和黨代表北方工業利益，幾十年來，他們一直在反對南方農業利益的反對，要求得到保護。在 1865 年至 1932 年的大部分時間裏，共和黨控製著國會和白宮，限製進口製造業以保護美國日益增長的工業企業成為關稅的主要目的。我們今天所熟知的遊說業起源於這個時代。

歐文在描述 1883 年製定《雜種關稅法》的立法過程時，引用了當時一位記者的話：

遊說者像一群禿鷹一樣湧入華盛頓，在那個冬天擠滿了所有的酒店，以雇傭他們的各種相互衝突的利益的名義拉扯著政治家……兩院的委員會成員都在忙於應對漫長的日程安排，以及遊說者對糖、鐵、羊毛、玻璃、大理石和其他數百種行業的無恥和無休止的要求。

除了少數例外，支持關稅的共和黨人一直影響著貿易政策，直到 20 世紀 30 年代初。隨著 1930 年《關稅法》（歐文稱之為“斯姆特-霍利”或“霍利-斯姆特關稅”）的災難性影響波及全球，民主黨重新掌權華盛頓，關稅的主要功能變得更加崇高：互惠。根據歐文的論文，從 1934 年《互惠貿易協定法》到美國政府成立，關稅已成為美國經濟的支柱。

從 1947 年的《關稅與貿易總協定》到最終於 1995 年成立世界貿易組織的多輪關貿總協定談判，再到奧巴馬總統任期，關稅的主要目的都是促使外國政府進行互惠貿易自由化。

歐文還著有其他五本書，涵蓋貿易政策史的不同方麵和主題，其中包括《逆潮流而動：自由貿易思想史》，在這本書中，他巧妙地評估並駁斥了對亞當·斯密關於專業化和自由貿易首要地位的理論的嚴峻挑戰。但《衝突》無疑是歐文最雄心勃勃的作品。

這本書涵蓋了 250 年的貿易政策，共 693 頁文本和 185 頁注釋和參考資料，並不適合膽小的人。但它也不會像歐文承認的那樣“讓人昏昏欲睡”，一些曆史學家認為冗長的關稅大部頭是這樣的。本書內容全麵，細節豐富，以曆史應有的方式呈現，也就是說，它以事實、客觀和引人入勝的敘述方式呈現。坦率地說，那些渴望更實質性地討論貿易政策的人會發現，這本書是一個避難所，可以讓他們遠離如今有線新聞和社交媒體上那些喧鬧、往往缺乏事實的交流。

本書涵蓋了許多子主題，包括國會將其部分憲法權力下放給行政部門背後的緊張局勢和理由。當歐文開始寫這本書時，他不可能知道這個主題在 2018 年會如此熱門——特朗普總統似乎在通過援引陳舊的法規征收關稅來測試該權力的極限。書中對一些長期存在的、具有曆史意義的問題進行了深入分析——例如關稅是幫助還是阻礙了美國的發展，關稅政策是否是內戰的原因，以及斯姆特霍利關稅法案是否導致了大蕭條。同樣，本書還描述了曆史上許多有助於塑造美國貿易政策的人物的觀點和動機：富蘭克林、漢密爾頓、傑斐遜、丹尼爾·韋伯斯特、科德爾·赫爾。亨利·克萊倡導“美國體係”的保護主義，讓人想起典型的現代經濟民族主義者。詹姆斯·波爾克的財政部長羅伯特·沃克堅持認為，對外貿易壁壘不是我們自己設立壁壘的借口，讓人想起弗雷德裏克·巴斯夏和米爾頓·弗裏德曼。

如果說讀完《衝突》後有什麽主要問題揮之不去，那就是歐文是否準備好在後續版本中進行實質性修訂。雖然這並沒有挑戰他關於美國貿易政策一直受到三個原則（稅收、限製、互惠）指導的廣泛論點，但似乎有理由假設，在特朗普總統的領導下，美國正在告別互惠時代，進入一個新的“R”時代：報複時代。

 

Clashing over Commerce A History of US Trade Policy 832 pages

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo24475328.html

Douglas A. Irwin

The John Sloan Dickey Third Century Professor in the Social Sciences in the Department of Economics at Dartmouth College. He is a research associate of the NBER. 

Dartmouth College is a private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. 

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Should the United States be open to commerce with other countries, or should it protect domestic industries from foreign competition? This question has been the source of bitter political conflict throughout American history. Such conflict was inevitable, James Madison argued in The Federalist Papers, because trade policy involves clashing economic interests. The struggle between the winners and loser from trade has always been fierce because dollars and jobs are at stake: depending on what policy is chosen, some industries, farmers, and workers will prosper, while others will suffer.
           
Douglas A. Irwin’s Clashing over Commerce is the most authoritative and comprehensive history of US trade policy to date, offering a clear picture of the various economic and political forces that have shaped it. From the start, trade policy divided the nation—first when Thomas Jefferson declared an embargo on all foreign trade and then when South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over excessive taxes on imports. The Civil War saw a shift toward protectionism, which then came under constant political attack. Then, controversy over the Smoot-Hawley tariff during the Great Depression led to a policy shift toward freer trade, involving trade agreements that eventually produced the World Trade Organization. Irwin makes sense of this turbulent history by showing how different economic interests tend to be grouped geographically, meaning that every proposed policy change found ready champions and opponents in Congress.

As the Trump administration considers making major changes to US trade policy, Irwin’s sweeping historical perspective helps illuminate the current debate. Deeply researched and rich with insight and detail, Clashing over Commerce provides valuable and enduring insights into US trade policy past and present.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Part I: Revenue
1. The Struggle for Independence, 1763–1789
2. Trade Policy for the New Nation, 1789–1816
3. Sectional Conflict and Crisis, 1816–1833
4. Tariff Peace and Civil War, 1833–1865
Part II: Restriction
5. The Failure of Tariff Reform, 1865–1890
6. Protectionism Entrenched, 1890–1912
7. Policy Reversals and Drift, 1912–1928
8. The Hawley-Smoot Tariff and the Great Depression, 1928–1932
Part III: Reciprocity
9. The New Deal and Reciprocal Trade Agreements, 1932–1943
10. Creating a Multilateral Trading System, 1943–1950
11. New Order and New Stresses, 1950–1979
12. Trade Shocks and Response, 1979–1992
13. From Globalization to Polarization, 1992–2017
Conclusion

Clashing Over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy by Douglas A. Irwin

https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/spring/summer-2018/clashing-over-commerce-history-us-trade-policy-douglas-irwin?

 

SPRING/?SUMMER 2018 • CATO JOURNAL

By Daniel J. Ikenson   Former Director, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies

During the first 16 months of Donald Trump’s tumultuous presidency, the subjects of trade, tariffs, and America’s role in the global economy have featured prominently in the public square. Although it may not have been as obvious before 2017, the conduct and consequences of U.S. trade policy—and, perhaps more so, the misconceptions surrounding it—have long stirred the people’s passions.

That’s not news to Dartmouth economics professor Douglas A. Irwin, whose latest treatise on the history of U.S. trade policy documents in exquisite detail how “The Tariff” has sparked bitter political, economic, and constitutional debate and has been a persistent source of sectoral conflict from the founding of the republic to the present.

Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy was written, according to Irwin, to fill a glaring void. The last major history of U.S. trade policy to be published was the 8th edition of A Tariff History of the United States in 1931, by Frank Taussig, the famous Harvard trade economist who became the first chairman of the U.S. Tariff Commission (predecessor of the U.S. International Trade Commission) when it was created in 1916. As Irwin aptly demonstrates in Clashing, much trade policy history has transpired since 1931.

But Irwin doesn’t begin where Taussig left off. He starts in colonial times to make certain his readers understand not only that U.S. trade policy played a major role in shaping the course of U.S. history, but that the mercantilist trade policies of the British Empire—such as the Navigation Acts, which precluded direct trade between the American colonies and other countries and required all goods be channeled through England—contributed to the growing anti-Crown fervor that eventually erupted into revolution and the birth of a nation.

In the introduction, Irwin references Federalist 10, in which James Madison notes that in every society there exist competing economic interests with contrasting views about what government policy ought to be. Alluding to what we would call the process of trade policy formulation today, Madison observed:

Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good.… It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good.

Irwin’s broad thesis, however, is that despite these bitter debates and the frictions and conflicts generated by this clashing of self-interests, U.S. trade policy has shown remarkable stability throughout the nation’s history. Irwin attributes that stability to a geographic continuity of economic interests (such as steel production in Pennsylvania, tobacco farming in Kentucky, textile manufacturing in South Carolina) and the separation of powers (Madison’s handiwork), which makes wrenching policy changes less likely. “Producer interests, labor unions, advocacy groups, public intellectuals, and even presidents can demand, protest, denounce, and complain all they want,” Irwin writes, “but to change existing policy requires a majority in Congress and the approval of the executive. If the votes are not lined up, the existing policy will not change.”

In fact, Irwin argues that U.S. trade policy substantively changed course only twice in our history, both times in response to exogenous shocks which led to political realignments—the Civil War and the Great Depression. Within each of the three periods delineated by these two shocks, policy continuity largely prevailed. But the shocks themselves heralded wholesale changes in the objectives of U.S. trade policy. In Irwin’s shorthand, the objectives of the three periods, chronologically, were “revenue, restriction, and reciprocity.”

From the Founding in 1787 until the Civil War, the main purpose of the tariff was to raise revenues for the operations of a modest federal government that had few other means of funding. Much of the early debate in this era was over the question of how high a tariff “for revenue only” should be. Some worried that too high a tariff would squeeze foreigners’ incomes, reducing the market for U.S. commodity exports. Others were wary that too much funding of the federal government would encourage its growth and encroachment into the jurisdiction of the states. Indeed, those concerns were very much at the heart of the conflicts over the 1828 Tariff of Abominations and the South Carolina Nullification Crisis in 1832. On the latter subject, Irwin notes—with a hint of pride—that trade policy was important enough to be the catalyst for America’s first significant constitutional crisis.

Although the tariff was used to protect domestic industry on occasion during this era, it wasn’t until after the Civil War that bald protectionism became the tariff’s primary motive. With the end of the Civil War came the ascent of the Republican Party, which represented northern industrial interests that for decades had been clamoring for protection over the objections of southern agrarian interests. For most of the period between 1865 and 1932, Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, and restriction of imported manufactures to protect America’s growing industrial concerns became the tariff’s main purpose. The lobbying industry as we know it today has its roots in this era.

Describing the legislative process surrounding the writing of the Mongrel Tariff of 1883, Irwin cites a reporter at the time who wrote:

Lobbyists descended like a flock of buzzards upon Washington, crowding all the hotels that winter, pulling, tugging at the statesmen in the name of the all the diverse, conflicting interests that employed them, … as committeemen in both chambers wrestled with long schedules and with the unblushing and unending demands of lobbies for sugar, iron, wool, glass, marble, and a hundred other trades.

With a few small exceptions, pro-tariff Republicans held sway over trade policy until the early 1930s. As the disastrous effects of the Tariff Act of 1930 (the “Smoot-Hawley” or “Hawley-Smoot Tariff,” as Irwin calls it) were rippling across the globe, and the Democrats returned to power in Washington, the main function of the tariff became a nobler one: reciprocity. According to Irwin’s thesis, from the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act to the founding of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947, through the multiple GATT rounds culminating in the founding of the World Trade Organization in 1995, and through the Obama presidency, inducing foreign governments into reciprocal trade liberalization was the main purpose of the tariff.

Irwin is the author of five other books covering different aspects and themes of trade policy history, including Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade, in which he masterfully assesses and dispenses with formidable challenges to Adam Smith’s theories about the primacy of specialization and free trade. But Clashing is easily Irwin’s most ambitious undertaking.

Covering 250 years of trade policy in 693 pages of text and 185 pages of notes and references, the book is not for the fainthearted. But neither is it “narcolepsy engendering,” as Irwin admits some historians consider lengthy tariff tomes to be. It is comprehensive in coverage, rich in detail, and presented as history ought to be, which is to say factually, objectively, and with an engaging narrative. And, frankly, those hungering for a more substantive discussion about trade policy will find the book a welcome refuge from the boisterous, often fact-starved exchanges witnessed nowadays on cable news and social media.

The book covers many subthemes, including the tensions and rationales behind Congress’s delegation of some of its constitutional authority over trade policy to the executive branch. Irwin could not have known when he began writing the book how topical that subject would be in 2018—with President Trump seemingly testing the limits of that authority by invoking dusty statutes to levy tariffs. Persistent, historically relevant questions—such as whether the tariff helped or hindered U.S. development, whether tariff policy was a cause of the Civil War, and whether Smoot-Hawley caused the Great Depression—are all given thorough analysis in the book. Likewise, the book describes the views and motives of many figures from history who helped shape U.S. trade policy for better or worse: Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Daniel Webster, Cordell Hull. Henry Clay, with his advocacy of “The American System” of protection, evokes the typical modern day economic nationalist. Robert Walker, Treasury Secretary to James Polk, in his insistence that foreign trade barriers are no excuse for our own, evokes Frederic Bastiat and Milton Friedman.

If there is any major question that lingers after reading Clashing, it is whether Irwin is prepared to accommodate substantive revisions in subsequent editions. Although not a challenge to his broad thesis that U.S. trade policy has been guided by the three Rs (Revenue, Restriction, Reciprocity), it seems reasonable to posit that, under the direction of President Trump, the United States is departing the era of reciprocity and entering, perhaps, a new R: the era of Retribution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Clashing Over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy by Douglas A. Irwin