Features » April 4, 2008

The Upside of Nationalism (cont’d)

The Patriot Corporation Act, a bill sponsored by Obama, would provide tax advantages and federal contracting preferences to companies that maintain their operations and employment base in the United States. This renewed effort to legislatively distinguish–and target–companies based on geographic employment and tax decisions started in 2002 with two little-noticed bills.

Back then, Connecticut tool company Stanley Works was making plans to exploit a tax loophole and officially reincorporate in Bermuda to avoid paying U.S. taxes. The story spurred a local outbreak of economic nationalism, and, in response, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) passed a high-profile amendment banning federal contracts from going to companies that perform such “inversions,” as they are called.

At the same time, Reps. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) forced a House vote on their bill to ban the government’s Export-Import Bank from continuing to subsidize companies that are simultaneously reducing their domestic workforce and increasing their foreign workforce.

Both initiatives were ultimately killed, as was Sanders’ follow-up in the Senate in 2007, when he authored legislation to prohibit companies that announce mass domestic layoffs from receiving H-1B visas that allow them to import foreign workers at lower wages. The rise of economic nationalism could help these kinds of spending limitation bills make a big comeback–and not just in Congress.

In January, Oklahoma Rep. Rebecca Hamilton (D-Oklahoma City) introduced a bill to prohibit her state from contracting with any company that has shut down domestic facilities and opened up foreign ones, unless that company agrees to comply with American wage, safety and human rights standards. Hamilton has smartly wrapped her initiative in the immigration issue. She notes that one of the root causes of illegal immigration is corporate exploitation of foreign countries’ poor standards, which forces many people to cross the border in search of better conditions.

“The state of Oklahoma is basically targeting Hispanic people and other immigrants when we should be targeting the companies that take advantage of lax border enforcement to exploit lower-wage workers in both countries,” Hamilton says.

That message and her bill are easily replicable, and may serve as a national model in state legislatures across the country.

Neutral ‘nationalism’

Admittedly, the term “nationalism” can elicit legitimate fear. The impulse to prioritize the home nation over everything else has an ugly side, one that at least some members of the media seem interested in stoking, as shown by the recurring hysteria over Obama’s multinational and religious heritage. Indeed, in February, Time’s Mark Halperin advised Republicans to “emphasize Barack Hussein Obama’s unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism.”

But as with most impulses, nationalism is really value neutral. It can be used for both horrific and terrific causes, and today’s political tectonics suggest the chance for the latter to ascend over the former.

Progressive populism has proven to be an electoral force nationwide. Congress and state legislatures are designing an agenda that turns today’s economic nationalism into a legislative program.

Last month, a coalition of progressive groups launched a national antiwar campaign to make the public see Iraq War spending as the cause of the recession and underinvestment here at home–a nationalist, America-first message at its core. And because the war is sending so much money overseas, Republicans attempting to appease their “fiscal conservative” base could be increasingly unwilling to obstruct measures that reduce corporate welfare and redirect taxpayer resources to the homeland.

In short, American politics is perfectly aligned to help progressives use nationalism for our economic agenda.