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| Does it take a 'strong leader' to run a free market society? No. |
I judged the candidates' sympathy for capitalism using their statements from the first presidential debate - held on September 26th. In my view, they made the most noise about economics in that debate. Each candidate received 1 point every time one of their sentences was anticapitalistic in terms of either property rights, taxation, size of government, tariffs, trade regulations, labor regulations, capital regulations, or business regulations. The categories are based on the Economic Freedom of the World Index by the Frasier Institute.
The results show that Trump is the anticapitalist candidate by far.
Trump has more than twice as many points with a total score of 42 (Trump) to 17 (Clinton). Points are bad - just like in golf. But the quality of their anticapitalisms differs. Notice that none of Clinton's statements were geared toward Trade Regulations, Tariffs, or Private Property and Trump avoided anticapitalism points for Capital Regulations and Size of Government.
It's apparent from the Trade Regulations column-segment that Trump's rantings of "stolen jobs" drive the result. It's tempting to argue that 'taking our jobs back' is pro, rather than anti-capitalistic. But the sentiment has much more to do with opposing foreign business for special interests than growing a free market economy. For example, I previously wrote about how the trade deficit implies that foreigners have financial capital to invest in the U.S. Furthermore, neoclassical theory shows that international trade has similar effects to technological progress. Both enable greater production, lower prices, and, in practice, they both reduce poverty. Adam Smith has a whole chapter in The Wealth of Nations dedicated to explaining why Trump's "balance of trade" philosophy is completely mistaken. Two of his most well-known policy insights are opposition to food tariffs and export subsidies (Book IV, Chapter V) - each of which are used to accomplish Trump's goal of 'reducing the trade deficit.'
Of course, Trump would say that he supports trade in principle but it has to be 'fair' or we need to get a 'good deal' because 'they're killing us.' He almost sounds like Bernie Sanders out there sometimes. But - unlike Sanders - he admits that what he wants requires tariffs - which are higher taxes on American purchases:
"If you think you're going to make your air conditioners or your cars or your cookies or whatever you make and bring them into our country without a tax, you're wrong."
Click here to view the statement scoring.
My friend, you wrote these words in this order: I judged the candidates' sympathy for capitalism. Many a libertarian mind seems to be operating in a similar manner these days, but you purify the blind spot so neatly that I cannot but beseech you to tilt your head and think for a moment about what you are thinking. The game. Undoubtedly there is a thrill in writing “I judged the candidates.” The political proponents of laissez faire capitalism never seem to savor it though. The burdens of common sense in a world gone mad, literally mad. Perhaps. More like a pension for sorting oblivion. It is an endearing quality, regardless.
ReplyDeleteStill there is a paragraph of yours containing four sentences, the first of which opens with an active voice, “I judged the candidates' sympathy for capitalism.” The second reads, “In my view”… followed by a comma and from there the passive voice reigns. You even cap off the formal rules of the game with a zany “Economic Freedom of the World Index.” The mind boggles. An intelligent man earnestly believing the promotion of a compulsion to measure things can express some deep insight into the nature of things; by its sheer dynamism, presumably. Fine. Accepted. There is no denying math. What stretches credulity is that underlying all this is a notion that one may parse two sets of nonsense with connotations of empty denotations and thereby sincerely demonstrate an intelligible point.
“Each candidate received 1 point every time one of their sentences was anticapitalistic.” Received? From on high? It IS like golf, the judgment arrives rushing through the hot air of impartiality after being directed toward at a prefixed point on an artifice. Largely just because, though there is a tinge of hero worship by proxy along with some nonthiestic superstitious baggage. All economist are religious. This is by way, mostly, of me wondering to you if there will ever be an occasion for my dear libertarian friends to hear: inque tuo sedisti, Sisyphe, saxo. Or, at the very least, resist the urge to take sanctimonious potshots.
“Although Clinton's wonkish economic proposals are totally illiberal as well.” Please. This limited government nonsense is becoming a problem. Who or what does the limiting? Given the current states of affair and the prospects on stage, I can understand a desire to turn the debate into some bingo-esq drinking game, but the blind spot is a belief justified onto itself. The facade would collapse if it received the benefit of the doubt. My friend, did Donald Trump speak in complete sentences? Did the set of statements Hillary Clinton sought to make extemporaneous provide meaningful insights or data? Is it possible that located in Trump’s noise, Clinton’s duplicity, and your views on anticapitalistic sentiment—at least three unfettered mistakes exist? “Plato - that scourge of the human mind,” it could not be that none, including yours draped under a convoluted guise, are remotely accurate presentations of actual life on planet earth.
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ReplyDeleteYou awarded authority to yourself, “I judged the candidates.” Were you wearing a whig? I digress. But it reads like you sensed what you had done, and prudently distanced yourself without letting go. People react differently upon recognizing that one imprudently vested undue authority in oneself; some never realize that they did. But, generally, a conservative is apt to conserve vested authority and not rely on those who they do not know or those who know so much that is not so.
Having witnessed our dear progressive friends fracture and distribute formal authority as though it was their business, proceeding to wield power from their various positions in the press, universities, and civil services—by cutting a great deal of smack—conservatives learned there was nothing to be gained by apologizing to the clients of patrons now glittering the world with dependencies, grievances, and hellfire missles.. “Clinton's wonkish economic proposals are totally illiberal as well.” Of course the Clinton’s will go where the money is. You are clever enough to know exactly what this is, I’m just not sure how it fits into your picture of a free market:
“I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody's watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”
More importantly, the Democratic party and their candidate managed to lose two wars and start at least three new ones. Federal outlays are up over a trillion dollars per year. Not sure what direction health care policy would go under a Clinton administration? Over 80-percent of employment is now services-providing. At least one in six jobs are directly counted as positions in federal, state, or local governments. Do I need to preach to you on the number of jobs which exist to push paper or the number of businesses and households receiving government contracts, grants, and subsidies? I think not, it rather seems that your reading of sympathies towards the international division of labor is what you mean by capitalism.
I’m not sure how much We is still We, but this seems a catchy jab concealing a rather wistful position: “We the Peoples’ are expecting prosperity from government and justice from the market.” It could be a mentality, or it could be an effect, or it could be both. But I think it is more likely that it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish government from the market because the two have been actively blurred. Too big to fail springs immediately to my mind. Yours? What about pigs and troughs? Is it a coincidence the property values of residences around the District rose while foreclosures throughout the country rose?
The libertarian mind does something different than the conservative, rather than holding the misaligned sense of power lest someone else (progressives) grabs it to seek clients and demand public patronages as though it were their righteous duty. The libertarian mind (in this case, yours) constructs an intellectual marketplace, largely in ones own head, then energize! The strangest things happen, the libertarian cannot seem to understand why common sense is lost on others and builds many complex, non-obvious theories to explain the phenomena. I agree, Adam Smith makes a great deal of sense. On the Wealth of Nations probably ought be canon, and perhaps everyone else has gone a little off script during the past 260 years. Perhaps a lot.
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ReplyDeleteBut submitting to a collectivist mentality? If I could operate the machine I would not tell you how you could too. I doubt Trump would either. So can we not place “as well” around the wonkish and totally illiberal party whose activists have long preached and sought to bring an end to capitalism? If it is broken, who whom broke it? If Trump is elected and drains the swamp is this a victory for liberty? If he pulls an FDR you will get to say I told you so. But he could lose, Clinton could win. More to the point your piece is not a philosophic or research paper, seems more a matter of propaganda or confusion. “As well.” Are you kidding me? You also so easily dismiss things as conspiracies and treat the banking system as though it were ‘neutral’ in the battles between liberty and power.
If the banks are neutral someone forgot to tell the politicians, lobbyists, officials, regulators, traders, Clintons, and, in deed, the bankers. Which is possible, I suppose. A pivot, I guess. There sure are some odd corners of the Internet but this is not one conspiracy, it is millions of little ones amidst a rising tide of many perverse incentives being enforced by an ever expanding civil service being delegated ever expanding authorities into ever expanding areas of life. The people not on the dole or the spigot are reacting exactly in a manner one would hope, at least I thought, a champion of liberty might applaud if not encourage. But that wouldn’t fit your theory
China is not * our * piggybank. The plan, my man, is to formalize their investments. The Chinese will pay, but through tariffs which allow revenue to increase while lowering taxes and not grafts which give incentives to bubbles and unfunded liabilities where profits go to special interests until they stop and their debts becomes public. The tariffs do not need to balance the trade deficit to be effective. Let’s be real, the Chinese gobbled up control over most rare earth metals (and Hollywood, apparently). The US will still control the Pacific and energy through the military and the market; not debt, new money, and climate accords.
We could have a Republican congress and presidency, with a mandate to:
FIRST, propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress;
SECOND, a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);
THIRD, a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;
FOURTH, a 5 year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service;
FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;
SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.
If libertarians have a solution up their sleeve, now would be a great time to show your hand. I know of no other way for a republic to have a limited government then by the people and constitution limiting it. What is your solution? Judge the candidates’ by accumulated demerits for every anticapitalistic sentence uttered in a debate…
Is that what you think a progressive Supreme Court and Executive would do? Is that what the Chinese Communist Party does? Trump is attacking the remnants of the managerial revolution, the old New Left, the Cathedral, and the Iron Triangle. If he succeeds the plan is to make a whole lot of room for libertarians to flourish. (Check out the seventh action plan and legislative measure number four. My god man can you imagine universities as places of learning not monopolized safe spaces where administrators launder money?) The plan is not just to cut regulations, but cut down the number of regulators. That seems like a pretty great way to push back against the collectivist mentality and let the free market within the United States do what it does. It is astonishing, the whole thing is nuts. But we are here, this is happening, and I hope the bastard pulls it off.
https://fee.org/articles/this-could-be-our-1989/
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