Economic nationalism differs from free-trade ideology in having three distinct goals rather than one. The first isn’t discussed very often in a time of relative global peace: maintaining the industries necessary for prevailing in a large-scale war. The Civil War might have had a different outcome had the North not possessed an overwhelming advantage in industrial capacity over the Confederacy.

Likewise, there would not have been a Western Front in World War II if the United States had not had the industrial strength to back Britain’s defiance of Nazi Germany. That the United States could wage war on Germany and imperial Japan simultaneously was a function of the rapidity with which civilian industry could be adapted for military needs. The United States had the raw resources, the energy capabilities and the factories necessary to conduct a two-front war. Such capacity in the service of national defense will sooner or later be needed again. Strength has to be held in reserve.

The second goal of economic nationalism is no less important than being prepared for the exigency of war. From the time of the Constitution’s drafting, American statesmen have seen the need to preserve a middle layer in the nation’s economic order. As far back as Aristotle, a secure middle class has been thought essential to the well-being of a constitutional republic.

Such a middle class is hard to imagine in a postindustrial nation consisting of a tiny capital-controlling elite and a vast population of Amazon warehouse workers. That a sort of postindustrial middle class might be sustained by universities and hospitals, as it is in places like Pittsburgh, is not a comforting thought to the conservative kind of economic nationalist. Productive industries with a measure of trade protection are still private, profit-seeking firms; in short, they are capitalist institutions, which hospitals, in effect, and universities, in most cases, are not. Economic nationalists are intent upon protecting not only certain industries but also a multilayered free-market political and economic order that is anchored by a healthy middle class.

The third objective of economic nationalism is the most general and the one that most closely matches the aims of free-market ideology: namely, to foster prosperity. Economic nationalists do not accept the claims made by extreme free-traders that any degree of industrial protection must inevitably lead to less national wealth. But so what if it does? If the price of national security and a durable, free middle class is a modest reduction in gross domestic product, the economic nationalist is willing to pay it.