Barry and Mustafa explore some unexpected territory in their reflection on Marc Palen's "Pax Economica: Left-wing Visions of a Free Trade World." Palen's book reveals a forgotten history where socialists, feminists, and anti-imperialists championed free trade as a weapon against imperialism and pathway to peace. This tradition has been so thoroughly erased that today's left automatically opposes free trade, ceding the entire discourse to corporate interests.
The conversation takes some fascinating turns as they realize how Trump's current trade policies are essentially cosplay from the 1890s—complete with McKinley references and 19th-century rhetoric about reciprocity. This leads them to think about concepts like "free trade" and "protectionism" as essentially empty signifiers that different political movements fill with their own meanings and purposes.
They spend time puzzling over why free trade hasn't been a major public issue in British politics (unlike in Turkey, where it carries heavy imperial baggage), and end up in an unexpectedly extended discussion about AI and automation. If robots can do everything domestically, what happens to the traditional rationales for international trade? Does this push us toward a new era of economic nationalism—not for ideological reasons, but purely practical ones?
The conversation meanders in the way good reflections do, touching on everything from the Ottoman Empire's experience with forced trade agreements to whether AI could ever replace psychotherapists. It's the kind of discussion where they don't reach neat conclusions but do clarify why these seemingly technical economic issues might be more politically crucial than they initially thought.
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