Imported cars outsold domestic cars for the first month ever in July. There's something symbolic in this. But the substance of the matter is an "American" car now means a car with "Ford," "GM," "Chrysler," or some other familiar label on it. Who knows if my Ford is made in Canada, or Mexico, or somewhere further away? Complicating matters further, Chrysler is now owned--perhaps as a "thank you" to the U.S. government for bailing it out during the Carter administration--by Europeans. Japan's Toyota has factories in Alabama, West Virginia, and Texas. Companies don't have allegiances to the nations they're based in, so why would people in those nations have allegiances to them? If paying Toyota makes better dollars and cents than paying GM, an American will pay Toyota. If paying a Mexican makes better dollars and cents than paying an American, GM will pay a Mexican. All of this seems true of Americans, but the ubercapitalist's notion that this is a universal truth seems to clash with the reality in certain nations, particularly Japan, where up until fairly recently imported American vehicles made up less than one percent of its auto market. Parochialism, nationalism, xenophobia, patriotism (pick your word depending upon your point of view), though not generally more powerful than economics in America, trumps economics elsewhere. Strangely, in exalting economics over all, libertarians and Marxists find common ground. Ideology makes strange bedfellows.
What evidence do you have to suggest that patriotism and xenophobia play any role whatsoever in the Japanese decision not to buy American? It is kind of well known that American cars suck.
In any event, nothing in that contradicts economics or provides a foil to the libertarian view. Carl Menger showed in the 19th century (and others before him in the continental tradition had played a role in this) that a thing has no inherent value, per se, but only the value applied to it by the human mind. If Japanese consumers are willing to pay more for a car because of the fact that it is Japanese, than this is not nationalism "trumping" economics. It is economics in action.
