If you are George Soros you do not see the world defined by national boundaries, you see it defined by market areas, transportation grids, and consumer densities. In other words, your American passport is an item of convenience not of conviction. Your preoccupation is worldwide and the nation state is often regarded as an impediment to your ambitions and sometimes regarded as a bulwark against the ambitions of others, or other nation states.
For these people patriotism is a quaint concept.
As a matter of governing intelligently, we must begin to consider how and why we should erect or demolish national barriers to trade and labor. Today, the president of the United States was blathering on about economic patriotism when the concept of sound economics is foreign to him and patriotism is anathema to him. Why, should we believe the Barack Obama can intelligently decide to send $47 billion to Gaza but Walgreen cannot make an rational decision about where it is better advantaged economically?
Obama's role is not to criticize people who are behaving rationally according to their responsibilities to maximize profits, but to make America the most attractive place to maximize profits.
If we let the left define "economic patriotism" we will get neither.
