We Can Only Hope

We’re trying to decide what take we should have on John Fund’s analysis and quote in his ‘Right to Repair’ Is Gaining Momentum in Capital Matters at National Review. Here are the two paragraphs [we have eliminated the break] we are interested in:

A growing number of Republicans are recognizing that to be pro-market and pro-consumer does not mean blindly following business interests. “There is a difference between being pro-business and pro-market, a point that was made centuries ago by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations,” GOP state senator Louis Blessing of Ohio told NPR.

We see at least three possible takes. Our first take is WTF took the GOP so long? Was there a time when GOP members though blindly following business interests was pro-market? As Louis says, that point was made centuries ago by Adam Smith and, more recently and repeatedly, by MWG. Being pro-market is good for consumers in the short-term and even better in the long term because it is the most likely way to get the growth fairy to visit.

Our second take is not to believe Louis. Who are these growing number of people in the GOP who are pro-market? We are unable to conjure up a single significant elected official that is pro-markets. Sorry Louis. We think zero Democrats is a given. On the GOP side, The Donald is surely not pro-market as his tariff policies confirm. Be sure that The Donald gets some blame for the baby formula shortage. We not quite ready to dub RonD relative to markets but we see no evidence of him having a priority to be pro-markets. The NYT connects RonD to the nationalistic GOP base which would make him like The Donald. Marco Rubio of sugar tariffs and industrial policy is surely not pro-markets. We find that John going to a GOP state senator for a quote makes the point really questionable. So, we would like Louis and John to name names. What members of the GOP are pro-markets and how are the numbers growing rather than just siding with the numerous farmers against the few tractor manufacturers?

Our third take is hope. Perhaps Louis is right and the GOP is trending sensible on trade and business policy. If so, why is The Donald competitive for the GOP presidential nomination? We really, really hope the trend towards pro-market is real but our optimism is muted because we need elected pro-market leaders to stop the the virulently anti-market forces with well-known leadership. Right now we feel confident in asserting that there are zero elected pro-market federal officials in leadership positions. We could really use to elect a pro-market president in 2024.

Why Everybody DOESN’T Love Capitalism

We get a mild amount of joy from the Quora site. They ask misleading or sometimes just leading questions and have answers that vary from crazy to almost serious. Recently somebody asked: Why do most people love capitalism? The answer told us why most people should love capitalism. There is a great picture with one half being a big house and the caption: Capitalism: an unequally shared blessing and the other half a huge concrete Soviet apartment block with the caption: Socialism: Equally shared misery. We measured one of those apartment buildings in Poland at over a quarter of a mile long. Of course even equally shared misery is an overstatement for socialist outcomes as we know from watching Communists outcomes in the Soviet Union and Cuba and the application of socialism in Venezuela. We also know that capitalism, or a move in that direction has taken enormous amounts of people out of extreme poverty. Here is the data for 2011-2019.

We regularly refer to ourselves as a capitalistic orphan because few other people love capitalism. Consider the 540 elected officials in the federal government. How many act as if they love capitalism by supporting it?

Sidebar: One might try to argue that all 540 of them all love capitalism in the sense that it produces Other People’s Money they can use to buy friends and influence people. The problem is that those 540 people use that money and their influence to reduce the capitalistic nature of our republic. End Sidebar.

All of the Democrats including the president, The Frontrunner, the Vice-President, Triple A, and all the 260 or so Democrat Congress critters, including the ones that caucus with the Democrats can be eliminated from the love list for capitalism. All of the supporters of The Donald (GOP or otherwise) can be eliminated as well for their stance on free trade. Most of the other GOP Congress critters like “Mr. American sugar,” Marco Rubio can be eliminated individually. We think it is fair to say that the vast majority of elected officials are reacting to the electorate. They don’t like capitalism.

Why don’t people like capitalism? As we see it, almost everybody loves capitalism as a consumer. Except for dedicated socialists like The Bernie everyone is delighted to see dozens of different choices of Oreos at the grocery store. We stopped counting at 32 (that is 32 items not 32 dozen). The Bernie is frowning and talking about the inefficiency while the folks that love Golden Double Stuf Oreos are rejoicing. It is great that we are better off many ways than the world’s richest man of 100 years ago. Comparing us to him we have amazing vehicles, wonder drugs, jet travel, and all of the astonishing electronics like our phones. People do love the fruits of capitalism.

What people don’t like is the other side of the ball: Creative Destruction. Here is a summary of Creative Destruction:

[T]he process inevitably results in losers and winners. Producers and workers committed to the older technology will be left stranded. Entrepreneurs and workers in new technologies, meanwhile, will inevitably create disequilibrium and highlight new profit opportunities.

Here is the story of Sears Roebuck going from entrepreneurs to an economic winning business to a bankrupt loser in about a century. Nobody wants to be an economic loser and with the 540 elected officials in the federal government there is somebody to listen and who can often do something about those pleas. So we have numerous business restrictions like CAFE, tariffs, the extraordinarily complex tax code, and the government buying unreliable energy from silly contraptions to just name a few of the government reactions to try and stop change.

Most people dislike capitalism because it causes change and new economic winners and losers. Folks don’t want to change if they are on the losing economic side so they get the government to slow down change. People love the fruits of capitalism but the process is what they don’t like and that has the big immediate impact on them. That is why we are an economic orphan.

Regulatory Capture And Voting

Scott Lincicome at The Dispatch is always worth reading but My Treason Charge And The New Right’s Governance Fantasy is astonishingly good. It is worth paying for. Scott starts with the Jones Act and regulatory capture. The Jones Act restricts water transportation within the United States and is causing major energy problems in Puerto Rico and New England. The problems caused by the Jones Act are exacerbated by the capture of the regulators by the industry they are supposed to regulate. Scott quotes Dominic Pino at NRO:

“Regulatory capture” is the term that describes when an administrative agency works for the benefit of the industry it is supposed to regulate. Rarely is there such a clear case of regulatory capture as in U.S. water transportation.

Then Scott moves to generalize and find the problem with what he describes as the new right (we would call them the angry middle). The new right, as Scott sees it and we agree, wants to harness government to “better” goals:

The new right shares and amplifies this elite skepticism but eschews limited government and instead embraces state power to achieve its “anti-elitist” objectives. 

The problem is, as the Jones Act and The Weed Agency (a must read) show, trying to repurpose government is not going to be effective. Here is how Scott puts it:

As mentioned, that’s a big reason why limited government of enumerated powers is so central to the classical liberal thesis: No matter how well-intentioned a policy is, elites are fallible, and the systemic, corrupting influences of a big, unaccountable state all but ensure that policy results won’t match their intentions. 

Even if you win all the elections, and you won’t, it still doesn’t work. As usual, conservatives are right.

Sidebar: New faculty tend to be excited about their ability to make successful change. We would often encourage them to lead but remind them that either “We aren’t going to die on that hill,” or “We’ve already died on that hill.” End Sidebar.

Yet we find Dan Crenshaw’s arguments for unity in the WSJ (another paywall) for 2022 and beyond appealing. For example, the new right or angry middle was a crucial part of the coalition to make corporate taxation more sensible during The Donald’s administration. Dan invokes the sainted Ronald Reagan to attempt to unify the right behind the GOP in 2022:

The choice before Americans next month is simple. Will we sell our votes to politicians promising us prosperity if only we give them more of our money? Will we choose to be free—acknowledging the risks and challenges that inevitably accompany freedom—or will we choose to be dependent? Will we, as Reagan said, “believe in our capacity for self-government, or abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves”?

If the new right is wrong about economics and so many other things that we haven’t covered then why should we Reaganite conservatives support them? The problem is that although there are many conservative leaning folks, conservatives or serious conservatives or classical liberals as Scott calls them are few in number. On economics, we self-identify as a capitalistic orphan indicating that there are few of us. Unfortunately, we are not going to end up with 370 clones of Scott in Congress. One is a big ask. If your minimum qualification for elected office is as conservative as Ronald Reagan then you are unlikely to ever vote again. On the other hand, if you are a classical liberal in Georgia’s 14 district you can be excused for whatever choice you make about your vote for a representative in the House.

The Jones Act has been impoverishing most Americans and enriching a few for over a century yet there is not sign of eliminating it. Despite all the hardship it causes we rarely can even get waivers for it. Being right isn’t enough. You need a majority to elect just one candidate and then need to win a majority of elections to govern. And governing and the related compromises is hard work. Identifying the economics of regulatory capture is easy. Fixing it is really hard. Thus, we need to stay in the political game by electing folks that we have a chance to influence. That’s why we voted (yup, voting is open in WI) GOP this year despite our concerns about some of the nominees.

Two Wrongs On The Right

As you know, one of our pet peeves is folks who think conservatives, the GOP, and the right all mean the same thing. As we see it conservatives are a very small part of the right and, sometimes, not part of the GOP at all. Of the three groups we can only identify members of the GOP with some assurance. Some folks lament RINOs but that is our point: Many members of the GOP are not conservatives. We think that makes sense as the GOP’s purpose is to try to win elections as best it can and conservatives are far from a majority of voters. The GOP is now largely the party of the right but we are old enough to remember when a conservative Democrat actually held some conservative positions.

So, yes, we are not really defining our terms but we are going to start with the assertion that David French and Conrad Black are both conservatives. We have a tale of two pundits. David dedicated his life to defeating The Donald and, when the nomination was clear, electing The Frontrunner. Conrad supports The Donald almost as intensely. His last eight efforts at American Greatness have been taking The Frontrunner to task, glorifying The Donald, and mostly both.

David is still trying his best to protect his boy, The Frontrunner at The Dispatch:

I say the following with full knowledge that it is early in Joe Biden’s presidency, and he has time to turn things around. But let’s be honest. Joe Biden is struggling. 

Struggling? David is being extraordinarily kind to his guy that was supposed to know how government worked get right to work and be a uniter. David owes us conservatives an apology as he was absolutely wrong in his 2020 choice for president. Then he falls back on his other excuse for continuing to support The Frontrunner: The GOP is not ready to govern yet. It is a silly statement considering he provides considerable evidence that the Democrats are not ready to govern either. The GOP is a political party as are the Democrats. You can pick one or neither.

Conrad is causing problems in the other direction by glorifying The Donald. Conrad concludes his most recent American Greatness article with a call to return The Donald presidency as the only solution:

The supreme irony of this terrible crisis is that it may be that only the restoration of the former president [The Donald] can resolve the disastrous condition of the country for which Biden and the Bidenizers are entirely responsible.

That is as silly as anything David has written. The Donald was OK as president but he only made a few of his changes permanent by working with Congress. He failed completely on the need to reform entitlements. He was absolutely wrong on trade. Critically, he can only serve four more years. It is time for the GOP to move on. Conrad and David need to stop fighting the last two elections so conservatives can find policies and perhaps a people to support in 2022 and 2024.

A Continuing Conflict

It is our opinion that conservatives are a small part of the right and economic orphans are a small part of conservatives. Economic orphans, like MWG, think that capitalism is the best economic idea yet and look to ways to support freedom to choose. Even amongst us economic orphans there are strategic or political considerations. What are you willing to trade for this or that?

Eliana Johnson writing at Politico has an interesting take on the challenges us economic orphans have. Yes, you should read it all. We don’t agree with her on the history but we do agree with the gist of the article. She starts out with saying that the GOP was controlled by the economic orphans:

Over the past few months, a handful of Republican lawmakers have embraced economic policies that, not long ago, would have been unthinkable in the GOP. [Emphasis added]

We don’t think that the GOP is wedded to capitalism. We came of age with Nixon and wage-price controls. Reagan almost always supported us economic orphans with rhetoric but he realized to govern he must make exceptions like on tariffs. HW and W were less enamored with capitalism. The country still suffers from W’s decision on ethanol. The Donald had no organizing economic principles. He did, as Eliana says, often act like an Reaganite but there was no consistent rhetoric from The Donald on capitalism or anything else.

As we see it, the battle between the economic orphans and the GOP has been a long-running affair with the economic orphans getting a few wins but not having a winning record. Therefore, we think it is wise for capitalistic orphans to accept local losses while trying to stop more global losses.

The minimum wage proposal by Mitt and Tom Cotton is an example of a local loss. Of course a government mandated minimum wage is a foolish thing. But given the clamor for a really damaging proposal like $15 or more, Mitt and Tom’s proposal seems like a good political idea especially because it adjusts for inflation so the “out-of-date” minimum wage is no longer a political issue.

On the other hand, opposing those who oppose capitalism, usually by hyphenating it, is a hill to die on. Eliana ends with Pat Toomey:

“Those of us who think as I do need to constantly remind people that capitalism serves the common good,” [Pat] said in an interview. “This whole notion of common-good capitalism betrays the flawed premise on which it’s based, which is that capitalism somehow does not serve the common good.”

Well said Pat. We never understood Never-The-Donald but we can understand Never-Common-Good Capitalism. We hope the GOP doesn’t forsake us economic orphans in ’22 and ’24.

Rhetoric And Classifications

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. We’ve noticed some great examples and hope to get a few posts out of them. We start with Alexander William Salter of Texas Tech writing on “Common Good” Conservatism’s Catholic Roots in the WSJ. Yes you should read it all now. And then read it again after you come back and read MWG.

Alexander starts out with a really interesting first paragraph:

It’s no secret that U.S. conservatives and big business are falling out. Skepticism on the right toward corporations is at an all-time high. Many within the GOP regard woke capital as the greatest threat to American liberties. In fact, conservatives are rethinking the social role of markets in general. If free enterprise has lost the power to inspire the U.S. right, what’s the alternative? [Emphasis Added]

To help the reader we have made bold the five (US conservatives, the right, GOP, conservatives, and US right) different groups that Alexander is trying to conflate into one. To consider only the three in the US, they have Venn diagrams that overlap but, if conservative has real meaning, they are very different.

Conservatives are a small part of the right and not necessarily part of the GOP. The Donald is currently part of the right and was formerly the leader of the GOP but he is not a conservative. The GOP is a group you can join or leave that is trying to win elections, the right is a very broad category while conservatives work with ideas from a fairly common set of principles. Many conservatives left the GOP over The Donald. Others, like us, never joined. Conservatives are, on a checklist basis, fairly similar. Conservatives, however, vary in focus (e.g., freedom of speech, guns, abortion) so we say that those that focus on capitalism, we call ourselves capitalist orphans, are the smallest of splinters.

Sidebar: Speaking of rhetoric and persuasion, did you see what we did there? We didn’t get into the weeds on defining exactly what is a conservative, the right, and GOP so you wouldn’t get distracted and disagree with us on the irrelevant detail. Of course, there are a few folks that will take umbrage at us saying The Donald isn’t a conservative. We agree that The Donald took some conservative actions during his presidency but that is quite different from being a conservative. End Sidebar.

If Alexander is talking about capitalistic orphans then he first sentence is absolutely wrong. We supporters of capitalism are not supporters of any particular kind of business. There is no relationship to fall out of. Capitalistic orphans are supporters of consumers.

As we see it, individuals in the GOP, like The Donald and Marco Rubio, have advocated policies that are pro or anti certain types of businesses. It is bad economics but it might be popular. It means that us economic orphans are really homeless since the Democrat Party will give us no succor.

We Wish

David Azerrad from Hillsdale College has an interesting article in the What Is American Conservatism series at The American Conservative.   David’s title says American Conservatism Is Fiddling While Rome Burns.  It is a very strange title.  Is there a reason why David cares about Rome? We got the link from Paul Mirengoff at PowerLine, and like Paul, we find it interesting but lots to disagree with.

Our biggest disagreement comes in David’s second paragraph where he is describing the current state of conservatism:

Conservatism is the seven cheers for capitalism and the deafening silence on demographic change, feminism, and corporate malfeasance. It’s the same tired cast of speakers blathering about limited government almost a century after the New Deal. It’s the platitudinous Reagan quotes and the worn-out Buckley anecdotes. It’s the mindless optimism and the childish exhortations—if something can’t go on forever, it won’t!  [Emphasis added]

We wish there were seven cheers for capitalism.  As the forgotten and ignored capitalistic orphans we would settle for a single cheer.  As we have said before, we want the whole loaf of capitalism but we would take a half a loaf.  We have settled for The Donald because we get a single slice: The heel.  Our most important priority capitalism and the related free markets,  free trade, and rule of law are not a priority for any politicians and few pundits.

Then there is the non-deafening silence.  As a Mark Steyn fan, we get as much demographic change as we can bear.  We are not at all sure how David came to his opinions in the first sentence above.

What we think that David and other folks need to recognize is that each person on the right has a list.  These lists have lots of overlap.  The problem is that our priorities are very different.  We support The Donald in this year’s election because we are hoping for a slice and are almost sure to get a few crumbs from him.  Looking at the candidates in 2024 like Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio we are not sure we will be willing to do that.  We think they need us for a majority.  David and others seems to disagree on that point.  We shall see.

Another Easy Binary Choice

Kevin D. Williamson writes with his usual clarity and wisdom on economic matters at NRO in “[The Frontrunner]: Make America Great Again.”  Of course you should read the whole thing.  You should read everything that Kevin writes.  His article compares the similarities between Biden’s recent speech and The Donald.  He is absolutely right that The Frontrunner and The Donald have much in common on the economic front.  For us capitalistic orphans or friends of economic liberalism, as Kevin calls them, the 2020 election will not be a feast.

Where we disagree with Kevin is on the choice.  Kevin says:

For the friends of economic liberalism, 2020 is going to be a choice between testicular cancer on the left or testicular cancer on the right.

We would like a whole loaf.  We would be delighted with a half a loaf to feed us economic orphans.  With The Donald we get a slice, perhaps the heel, while with The Frontrunner we get nothing.  To paint them both with the same brush Kevin has to stretch the evidence.  For example:

Trump is more of a born-again Republican on taxes today, but in 2016 he complained long and loud about Wall Street traders beating the tax man,

The Donald has reduced taxes, and most importantly corporate taxes, grudgingly renewed NAFTA, and reduced regulations.  He is far from what Keven and MWG wants but he is the dominant solution in a binary choice.  The Donald should be an easy choice for economic liberals and capitalistic orphans in 2020.  It is likely to be a tougher choice for us in 2024 with folks like Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley.

After COVID-19, VDH version

Victor Davis Hanson, his writing be praised, tells us that the American public is asking tough questions about what our government should do after COVID-19.  Of course you should read the whole thing.  In fact, you should go out and read some of his books.  If you can afford it, you should buysome of them.  To help our discussion we have numbered the questions:

[1] Does the U.S. really need almost 15,000 people flying in from China each day? [2] At a time when American students owe $1.5 trillion in student loans, it is smart to have some 360,000 Chinese students enrolled in U.S. colleges? [3] Is it safe to fund hundreds of labs on university campuses that conduct joint research with Chinese academics? [4] Does the United States really wish to curtail fracking, which has made it the largest producer of natural gas in the world and ensured that a quarantined America has plenty of fuel? [5] Is it prudent to release precious irrigation water out to the Pacific Ocean when California is the richest and most diverse producer of food in America?

The answers to VDH’s questions:

1. We don’t need folks coming in from anywhere but if we are to be a free country then we need to let temporary visitors come and go.  Events will determine how how many come from each country.  Visits are different from immigration unless there is an issue like health.
2. Chinese students have, at best, nothing to do with student loans of American students.  Our experience at a state school is that international students, like the Chinese, pay full costs of tuition that help us give discounted tuition to in-state students.  We predict that 2020-21 will have devastating consequences for university budgets because there will be fewer foreign students.  Restricting international students will cause tuition to go up or quality to go down.
3. Joint research is different than students on campus.  Researchers must get campus approval for using human subjects.  Some similar system for approving research with international colleagues seems appropriate
4. No! No! No!
5. We have interesting problems with governmental intervention.  This is one of VDH’s pet peeves for good reason.

We are only on board with two parts of VDH’s solution (numbers added again):

Or we can have [1] bipartisan commissions decide how best to return key industries to the U.S., [2] prepare for the next epidemic, and [3] pay down the enormous debt we have incurred to defeat COVID-19. [Emphasis added]

We are fully in agreement with solutions two and three.  The federal government should be preparing for the next epidemic and don’t forget killer asteroids.  We need to take action about the debt from COVID-19 and the cost of entitlements.  This has been true for decades but it becomes more pressing now.

Sidebar: Yes, yes we know that there is a problem that everyone says that the government should do what we thought before COVID-19.  It is a problem.  The difference is we were right.  End Sidebar.

We are concerned about number one and particularly the bold word key.  At one extreme, we shouldn’t be buying aircraft carriers from the Chinese.  But we don’t trust the federal government not to go into full protectionist mode.  If Marco Rubio can successfully defend protecting Big Sugar then we will have big problems with trying to limit the number of industries designated as “key” industries.  Consumers will suffer.

As VDH says, we need to be thinking about the federal government after COVID-19.  It needs to change.  Getting any change is going to be a heavy lift.  VDH put the choice:

In other words, the choice is ours whether America awakens as a roaring giant or as a crying baby.

We hope we choose the former.

Jonah’s Recovery And Terminology

Of course we like our terminology.  It is part of controlling the conversation.  And almost everyone, including us, puts a little pejorative into their terminology to twist the knife or sway the fence sitters.

We have decided to sign up as a paying subscriber for Jonah Goldberg’s new organization, The Dispatch.

Sidebar: Well that was confusing.  We were deciding if we wanted to use “subscriber” or “member” after paying.  At the bottom of the newsletter they used the former but on the signup page we linked they used the latter.  End Sidebar.

Why?  Because Jonah had an interesting newsletter with DDD.  DDD would be Despising Da Donald.  We know The Donald is big news but it is good to see that Jonah is ready to discuss other stuff.

Jonah is discussing another new organization started by Oren Cass.  We get the newsletter as an email so we don’t have a link.  Here is how Jonah starts:

Oren Cass, a very bright fellow and decent guy, has launched a new organization, American Compass. Joining him are some other very bright people—some of whom I know, others I know by reputation. I do not worry that any of them—particularly Michael Needham or David Azerrad —are ersatz socialists or champions of dirigisme (which, I’ll have you know, I spelled correctly on the first try).

Oren’s project is trying to change the economic direction of the Republican party.  Jonah is exactly right except for the last seven words when he says:

I keep hearing people say or imply that libertarians and free market “fundamentalists” have been running the show in Washington. I honestly have no idea what they’re talking about—and neither do any libertarians I know.

We entirely agree we Jonah that the free market folks have not had control of the Republican party.  Read the whole thing.  You must read it if you need a review of the evidence.  Where we disagree with Jonah and Oren is on the term libertarian.  Our own bias is that libertarian just want to smoke weed.  We know that is unkind and over the top but we still think there is a big difference between what we call capitalistic orphans that want policies to emphasize economic growth and libertarians.  So we went to Wikipedia and the Libertarian Party(United States):

The Libertarian Party (LP) is a political party in the United States that promotes civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism, and limiting the size and scope of government.

We think priorities are crucial.  They support capitalism but it is the last on the list.  They don’t mention economic growth.  We think that Oren and Jonah are trying to appeal to folks like us that view the libertarians as a little suspect.  Oren is saying you want to be with us, the sensible people, rather than with the weird folks.  Perhaps we are weird too but we are not with Oren or Josh Hawley, or Marco Rubio, or any of the folks that are trying to create an industrial policy.  We, the capitalistic orphans want free markets to boost almost everyone and a safety net for the few.  We are willing to discuss what part of the safety net should be private and what part public.  And then what part should be local, state, or federal.

Welcome back to the serious stuff Jonah.  We have missed you.  Still you should have seen the misleading term, libertarian, in Oren’s stuff.  We will wait for you to adopt capitalistic orphans.