Business nationalism
Encyclopedia
Business nationalism is a right-wing economic nationalist
ideology held by a sector of the political right in the United States
.
Business nationalists are ultraconservative business and industrial leaders who favor a protectionist
trade policy and an isolationist
foreign policy. Locked in a power struggle with corporate international interests
, business nationalists often use populist
rhetoric and anti-elite scapegoating to build a broader base of support in the middle class
and working class.
In the past, business nationalism has also been the main sector in the U.S. from which union–busting
campaigns have emerged. Sectors of business nationalism also have promoted white supremacist
segregationism
, the Red Scare
s, anti–immigrant sentiment
, and allegations of Jewish banking conspiracies.
implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936 as proof of an imagined sinister alliance by international finance capital
and communist
-controlled labor unions
to destroy free enterprise
became known as “business nationalists”.
In the mid-1930s, Gerald L. K. Smith
carried the banner for business nationalists, many of whom were isolationists
and would later oppose the entry of the United States into World War II
. Smith received public and financial support from wealthy businessmen who were concentrated in “nationalist-oriented industries”. These included the heads of national oil companies Quaker State
, Penzoil, and Kendall Refining; automakers Henry Ford
, and John Francis Dodge
and Horace Elgin Dodge
. Two business nationalists who networked other ultraconservatives were J. Howard Pew
, president of Sun Oil, and William B. Bell, president of the chemical company American Cyanamid
.
Pew and Bell were on the executive committee of the National Association of Manufacturers
. Pew also funded the American Liberty League
, Sentinels of the Republic
, and other groups that flirted with fascism prior to World War II. After World War II, Pew funded conservative Christian
evangelicals
such as Reverend Billy Graham
.
The John Birch Society
, founded in 1959, incorporated many themes from pre-WWII right-wing groups opposed to the New Deal, and had its base in the business nationalist sector. The society heavily disseminated an ultraconservative business nationalist critique of corporate internationalists
networked through groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations
.
Today business nationalism is represented by ultraconservative political figures such as Pat Buchanan
.
scholar Mark Rupert, the right-wing anti-globalist
worldview of business nationalists “envisions a world in which Americans are uniquely privileged
, inheritors of a divinely inspired socio–political order which must at all costs be defended against external intrusions and internal subversion.” Rupert argues that this reactionary
analysis seeks to challenge corporate power without comprehending the nature of “capital concentration
and the transnational socialization of production.” The reactionary analysis absent this understanding breeds social alienation
and intensifies “scapegoating and hostility toward those seen as outside of, different or dissenting from its vision of national identity." As alienation builds, more overtly fascistic
forces will attempt to pull some of these angry people into an ideological framework that further justifies demonization
of the chosen "Other
."
Investigave reporter Chip Berlet
argues:
Economic nationalism
Economic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which emphasize domestic control of the economy, labor and capital formation, even if this requires the imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labor, goods and capital. It opposes globalization in many cases, or at...
ideology held by a sector of the political right in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Business nationalists are ultraconservative business and industrial leaders who favor a protectionist
Protectionism
Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other government regulations designed to allow "fair competition" between imports and goods and services produced domestically.This...
trade policy and an isolationist
Isolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
foreign policy. Locked in a power struggle with corporate international interests
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
, business nationalists often use populist
Right-wing populism
Right-wing populism is a political ideology that rejects existing political consensus and combines laissez-faire liberalism and anti-elitism. It is considered "right-wing" because of its rejection of social equality and government programs to achieve it, its opposition to social integration, and...
rhetoric and anti-elite scapegoating to build a broader base of support in the middle class
American middle class
The American middle class is a social class in the United States. While the concept is typically ambiguous in popular opinion and common language use, contemporary social scientists have put forward several, more or less congruent, theories on the American middle class...
and working class.
In the past, business nationalism has also been the main sector in the U.S. from which union–busting
Union busting
Union busting is a wide range of activities undertaken by employers, their proxies, and governments, which attempt to prevent the formation or expansion of trade unions...
campaigns have emerged. Sectors of business nationalism also have promoted white supremacist
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
segregationism
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
, the Red Scare
Red Scare
Durrell Blackwell Durrell Blackwell The term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong Anti-Communism in the United States: the First Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The First Red Scare was about worker revolution and...
s, anti–immigrant sentiment
Nativism (politics)
Nativism favors the interests of certain established inhabitants of an area or nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. It may also include the re-establishment or perpetuation of such individuals or their culture....
, and allegations of Jewish banking conspiracies.
History
Ultraconservative business and industrial leaders who saw the New DealNew Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936 as proof of an imagined sinister alliance by international finance capital
Finance capitalism
Finance capitalism is a term in Marxian political economics defined as the subordination of processes of production to the accumulation of money profits in a financial system. It is characterized by the pursuit of profit from the purchase and sale of, or investment in, currencies and financial...
and communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
-controlled labor unions
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
to destroy free enterprise
Free enterprise
-Transport:* Free Enterprise I, a ferry in service with European Ferries between 1962 and 1980.* Free Enterprise II, a ferry in service with European Ferries between 1965 and 1982....
became known as “business nationalists”.
In the mid-1930s, Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith was an American clergyman and political organizer, who became a leader of the Share Our Wealth movement during the Great Depression and later the Christian Nationalist Crusade...
carried the banner for business nationalists, many of whom were isolationists
Isolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
and would later oppose the entry of the United States into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Smith received public and financial support from wealthy businessmen who were concentrated in “nationalist-oriented industries”. These included the heads of national oil companies Quaker State
Quaker State
Quaker State may refer to:* Pennsylvania, which is colloquially known as the Quaker State* The Quaker State Corporation, a manufacturer of motor oil and other lubricants as of 2006 known as SOPUS Products* Quaker State , made by Pennzoil...
, Penzoil, and Kendall Refining; automakers Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
, and John Francis Dodge
John Francis Dodge
John Francis Dodge was an American automobile manufacturing pioneer and co-founder of Dodge Brothers Company.-Biography:...
and Horace Elgin Dodge
Horace Elgin Dodge
Horace Elgin Dodge, Sr. was an American automobile manufacturing pioneer and co-founder of Dodge Brothers Company.-Early years and business:...
. Two business nationalists who networked other ultraconservatives were J. Howard Pew
J. Howard Pew
J. Howard Pew was an American philanthropist and co-founder of Sunoco .Joseph Howard Pew was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania in 1882 and raised as a devout Presbyterian. In 1886 Pew’s father, Joseph Newton Pew, Sr. started an oil business in Pennsylvania, expanding to Texas when oil was discovered...
, president of Sun Oil, and William B. Bell, president of the chemical company American Cyanamid
American Cyanamid
American Cyanamid was a large, diversified, American chemical manufacturer, founded by Frank Washburn in 1907. It was the only United States firm manufacturing the polio vaccine of the Sabin type....
.
Pew and Bell were on the executive committee of the National Association of Manufacturers
National Association of Manufacturers
The National Association of Manufacturers is an advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C. with 10 additional offices across the country...
. Pew also funded the American Liberty League
American Liberty League
The American Liberty League was an American political organization formed in 1934 by conservative Democrats to oppose the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was active for just two years...
, Sentinels of the Republic
Sentinels of the Republic
The Sentinels of the Republic was a national organization that opposed what it saw as federal encroachment on the rights of the States and of the individual. Politically right-wing, the group was highly active in the 1920s and 1930s, during which it worked against child labor legislation and the...
, and other groups that flirted with fascism prior to World War II. After World War II, Pew funded conservative Christian
Conservative Christianity
Conservative Christianity is a term applied to a number of groups or movements seen as giving priority to traditional Christian beliefs and practices...
evangelicals
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
such as Reverend Billy Graham
Billy Graham
William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian evangelist. As of April 25, 2010, when he met with Barack Obama, Graham has spent personal time with twelve United States Presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman, and is number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for...
.
The John Birch Society
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
, founded in 1959, incorporated many themes from pre-WWII right-wing groups opposed to the New Deal, and had its base in the business nationalist sector. The society heavily disseminated an ultraconservative business nationalist critique of corporate internationalists
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
networked through groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
.
Today business nationalism is represented by ultraconservative political figures such as Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...
.
Criticism
According to progressiveProgressivism in the United States
Progressivism in the United States is a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century and is generally considered to be middle class and reformist in nature. It arose as a response to the vast changes brought by modernization, such as the growth of large...
scholar Mark Rupert, the right-wing anti-globalist
Anti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalisation movement, is critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or...
worldview of business nationalists “envisions a world in which Americans are uniquely privileged
American exceptionalism
American exceptionalism refers to the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other countries. In this view, America's exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming "the first new nation," and developing a uniquely American ideology, based on liberty,...
, inheritors of a divinely inspired socio–political order which must at all costs be defended against external intrusions and internal subversion.” Rupert argues that this reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
analysis seeks to challenge corporate power without comprehending the nature of “capital concentration
Capital accumulation
The accumulation of capital refers to the gathering or amassing of objects of value; the increase in wealth through concentration; or the creation of wealth. Capital is money or a financial asset invested for the purpose of making more money...
and the transnational socialization of production.” The reactionary analysis absent this understanding breeds social alienation
Social alienation
The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
and intensifies “scapegoating and hostility toward those seen as outside of, different or dissenting from its vision of national identity." As alienation builds, more overtly fascistic
Neo-Fascism
Neo-fascism is a post–World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. The term neo-fascist may apply to groups that express a specific admiration for Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism or any other fascist leader/state...
forces will attempt to pull some of these angry people into an ideological framework that further justifies demonization
Demonization
Demonization is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally monotheistic and henotheistic ones...
of the chosen "Other
Other
The Other or Constitutive Other is a key concept in continental philosophy; it opposes the Same. The Other refers, or attempts to refer, to that which is Other than the initial concept being considered...
."
Investigave reporter Chip Berlet
Chip Berlet
John Foster "Chip" Berlet is an American investigative journalist, and photojournalist activist specializing in the study of right-wing movements in the United States, particularly the religious right, white supremacists, homophobic groups, and paramilitary organizations...
argues:
See also
- Antisemitism in the anti-globalization movement
- Economic nationalismEconomic nationalismEconomic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which emphasize domestic control of the economy, labor and capital formation, even if this requires the imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labor, goods and capital. It opposes globalization in many cases, or at...
- IsolationismIsolationismIsolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
- ProducerismProducerismProducerism, sometimes referred to as "producer radicalism," is a right-wing populist ideology which holds that the productive members of society are being exploited by parasitic elements at both the top and bottom of the social and economic structure....
- ProtectionismProtectionismProtectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other government regulations designed to allow "fair competition" between imports and goods and services produced domestically.This...
- Right-wing populismRight-wing populismRight-wing populism is a political ideology that rejects existing political consensus and combines laissez-faire liberalism and anti-elitism. It is considered "right-wing" because of its rejection of social equality and government programs to achieve it, its opposition to social integration, and...