Free market or economic nationalism? Some useful notes for this debate

Within the conservative right there is an increasingly intense debate on international economic relations.

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Some voices no longer only reject illegal and massive immigration (something I agree with, as I have been saying for years on this blog), but also highly qualified immigration, specifically that aimed at attracting talent outside the borders of one's own country.

I think that when it comes to economics, some people tend to oversimplify things and forget that economics is a complex issue. Obviously, a free market framework does not mean a trade framework without rules, since a country should not allow the free entry of products and workers into its territory by countries that compete unfairly with practices such as "dumping" (communist China is a clear example). Vox MP Ricardo Chamorro explained it well in 2021 during a speech in Congress:

"There is no greater unfair competition than unfree or communist states, which monopolize all the means of production, being able to compete in free trade with democratic countries."

Another example of this unfair competition is Morocco, whose agricultural products flood the European markets without meeting the health and labour requirements that the European Union demands of farmers in community countries, creating a clear situation of unfair competition that seriously harms the European agricultural sector.

That said, in a globalized world (I am referring to economic globalization, brought about by advances in technology and improvements in communications, a process that has generated levels of prosperity never before achieved in the entire history of mankind), economic nationalism (understood as the systematic rejection of the arrival of imports and workers from abroad) can have very negative effects that some seem unable to foresee, such as closing markets and opportunities for exports and also for workers in the country that applies this policy, as well as the loss of foreign investment.

It is worth remembering that in Spain, economic nationalism was the dominant policy in the early years of the Franco regime, especially due to the political isolation imposed by other countries after the end of the Second World War. In those years, the country suffered serious economic hardships that were only alleviated by some foreign aid from a few countries (mainly Argentina). It was the opening of trade relations with the outside world and the arrival of foreign investment from the 1950s onwards, after the signing of the Madrid Pacts of 1953 between Spain and the USA, that initiated a great take-off of the Spanish economy.

Even during Franco's economic takeoff, many Spaniards emigrated to other countries, sending foreign currency back to Spain that helped the country recover. In an article published by the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Antonio Muñoz Sánchez, a doctor in History from the European University Institute in Florence, noted that in 1960 and 1961, 80,000 Spaniards went to work in West Germany, a country looking for skilled workers. The arrival of Spanish emigrants to that country continued in the following years, as the same author points out: "Every week between 1960 and 1973 an average of 800 Spaniards left their homes with a signed contract under their arm and took the train to Germany."

Even today, many Spanish workers look abroad for opportunities they do not have in Spain. According to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) published on March 19, 2024, there are 2,908,649 Spaniards residing abroad, the majority of them (1,707,606) in the Americas. According to the INE, there are 206,278 Spaniards residing in the United States. This gives an idea of ​​the number of new unemployed people we would have in Spain if the US decided to deny them permission to continue working in that country.

In relation to this topic, I add some quotes that I find interesting:

"Spain will defend the creation of an Atlantic area of ​​free trade and cooperation, which includes both the North and South Atlantic. Eliminating obstacles to exchanges of all kinds, to the movement of people and to innovation is the only way to move towards prosperity" (Vox's electoral programme for the 2015 general elections).

"We will guarantee legal immigration, orderly and adapted to the needs and possibilities of our labour market to ensure the employment of Spaniards and of immigrants who, arriving legally, contribute their efforts and respect our way of life." (Vox's electoral programme for the 2023 general elections).

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Photo: Javier Ignacio Acuña Ditzel.