“The return of the Right in 2016 and again in 2024 was not an intellectual revival. It was not driven by theory or political philosophy, but by visibility and reach: Jordan Peterson debating feminists, Charlie Kirk confronting campus socialists, Donald Trump dominating the podcast circuit. The Right returned culturally, but with an intellectual vacuum at its centre: most notably, a lack of serious economics.
For classical liberals looking back decades from now, this revival of the Right is unlikely to inspire them in the way Thatcher and Reagan still do today. The politicians of the 1980s were what George Will called ‘conviction politicians’: figures who entered politics with a coherent social creed. Politics for them was not merely about remaining in power, but about pursuing a broader mission of prosperity. That mission was not to control the economy toward a collective goal, but to empower individuals to make their own decisions.
Today’s Right, by contrast, is dominated by political entrepreneurs: figures highly skilled at attracting attention and mobilising voters. By nature, they are populists, and populism is the direct translation of public emotion into government policy. Without intellectual grounding, politics becomes purely oppositional. Today, lacking any clear sense of direction in economics, the Right is often effective at identifying problems but incapable of solving them.”
Definitely the Right’s problem: not enough intellectuals. Just look at what they’ve done for the Left!
The link given goes to a list of Basharzad’s writings at CapX. The link to the specific article quoted is here.
BTW, it’s worth having a look at the rest of his articles. There are some titles that look rather interesting that I intend to go back to and read.
The message is simple: The higher your taxes, the less money you have and the poorer you are.
For classical liberals looking back decades from now, this revival of the Right is unlikely to inspire them in the way Thatcher and Reagan still do today. The politicians of the 1980s were what George Will called ‘conviction politicians’: figures who entered politics with a coherent social creed.
I’m not convinced. The politicians of the 1980s addressed the specific issue of the 1980s; i.e., economics. The whole of the 1970s was about economic decline. In the US we had the second Arab oil embargo in 1978, when we could get gas/petrol only on odd or even days, depending on our license plate numbers.
Difficult as that was, it paled in comparison to life in Britain, when electricity was available only three days per week, when lifts in high-rises stopped working and families spent their evenings in candlelight. And that’s to say nothing about the bodies that were left unburied and the rubbish that wasn’t collected. It was a level of dysfunction on a national scale that’s difficult to imagine today.
Back then the critical issue was economics. That’s what Thatcher and Reagan had to tackle.
But that was forty years ago. Today’s major issue is immigration. So that’s what the populist movement, both in the US and in Britain, are talking about.
It’s not a hill I’d be willing to die on, but I have a suspicion that each era brings its own issue to the forefront, and that’s what has to be dealt with on its own terms. Comparing the current situation to that of forty years ago is fruitless, because the core issue has moved on.
Neither President Reagan or Prime Minister Thatcher managed to reduce government spending – although Margaret Thatcher did manage to reduce government spending as a percentage of the economy – although taxation increased (yes increased) as a percentage of the economy.
Ironically George F. Will himself knows less about economics than the people he attacks (limited though their knowledge is – and yes the people attacked in the post are limited in their knowledge of economics) – he is a “House Servant Conservative”, always parading his conservative manners (voice, suits and so on) and then (often) coming out for the Dems at election time or at other times when it really matters. Someone like Mr Will will never accept that the establishment is totally corrupt and must be destroyed – because he is part of the establishment, he loves “the institutions” (indeed he might well define a conservative as someone who loves the institutions) – so he is not a person to understand that the “Justice” Department, the Federal Reserve (and all the rest of it) should be nuked-from-orbit.
The monetary system is totally corrupt (it always was partly corrupt, even in the 19th century, but now it is totally corrupted), and the fiscal position is hopeless – the “entitlements” can not (can-not) be sustained – health, old age, and so on.
Centuries after their deaths both Roger Sherman and Edmund Burke have been vindicated.
Roger Sherman maintained (at the Constitutional Convention) that it must be made absolutely clear that only physical gold and silver could be used as money – that there must be no wriggle room at-all in the wording of the Constitution that corrupted judges and corrupted politicians might one day exploit, and he also maintained that the most important thing for government was to keep down government-spending (not take on Thomas Paine style commitments – to do X, Y, Z for “the people”) and, that if they did not keep government spending down then all the Bills of Rights and high sounding commitments to liberties would, in the end, not be worth anything.
And Edmund Burke, in his “Reflections on the Revolution in France” understood that the worst thing the Revolutionaries had done (worse even than their murder of innocent men and women) was their pushing of paper money (now “money” is mostly not even paper – it is just computer lights), and in his “Thoughts and Details on Scarcity” denounced the idea that the government should pay the poor – as government had no money of its own (at least an honest government has no money of its own), the money to pay the poor (or provide them with services) would have to come from taxation – and that higher taxation would lead to more (not less) poverty than would otherwise be the case.
Someone like George F. Will often cites the name of Edmund Burke and claims to follow him – but I doubt he has ever really read the works of Edmund Burke.
From reading past Samizdata, I thought that economics was not a real discipline, that it was voodoo, a wild-ass guessing game.
But now it’s what we lack?
bobby b – as such people as Steve Baker and Rupert Lowe are aware, economics is very much a real discipline.
Start with Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson” then move on to Ludwig Von Mises’ “Human Action”.
bobby b –
I thought that economics was not a real discipline, that it was voodoo, a wild-ass guessing game.
Do you know the story of William Troeller?
It was November, 1937. FDR’s dumb-ass policies meant that America actually went into a recession inside the the Great Depression. Go figure.
Young William lived in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He was thirteen years old. He hanged himself from the bedroom transom window because didn’t want to be a burden on his family.
His elder brother said ‘he was sensitive and always felt embarrassed’ about asking for his part at the family dinner table.
He was fucking thirteen years old, a child, who hanged himself because he didn’t want to be a burden on his family.
Tell me how economics is a ‘wild-ass guessing game’ when children kill themselves.
Heartily agreed. And the battle against open borders is also an economic battle. Cease immigration from the third world, deport illegals, remove benefits from foreigners and the economy looks a lot rosier.
Here is political entrepreneur, Nigel Farage in his UKIP days, addressing the IEA some 12 years ago. Sounds pretty intellectually grounded to me.
Sounds pretty intellectually grounded to me.
Well, then the question arises as to what happened to him in the meantime? Why is this aspect of his political approach far less in evidence? (Saying Reform will keep the “Triple Lock” on pensions, etc)
Paul: economics is very much a real discipline . Exactly. For example, look at the importance of understanding scarcity, specialisation, marginal utility, compounding effects, depreciation….These aren’t just “voodoo” as someone on here harumphed.
Marius: Sorry, but ending immigration from real or allegedly undesirable places is not going to be a major fix, because a good many of the challenges faced pre-dated whichever amount of immigration happens to be causing heartburn at any one stage in time. (That’s not to dismiss it, of course.)
I suspect the debasement snowball may have reached the stage where no economic priciple can stand in its way.
Philip Scott Thomas is basically correct. I would just disagree that this is purely – or even mostly – about immigration.
Immigration is just one of the symptoms of the much more serious malaise.
We’re not going to be able to tackle the underlying socialism-vs-free-markets argument until we’ve rolled back the batshit-insane-po-mo-cultural-relativism-vs-observable-truth nonsense.
We see this every day now: IMHO, the reason that Starmer cannot actually do – or even now say – anything sensible about the wild, breaking out in the open rampant anti-semitism is because he has spent the last 20-30 years vigorously undermining the cultural foundations that would allow him to do so.
He can’t turn round and ban the hate marches now because:
– he failed to make the case that people who rip down posters that just say “kidnapped” are, in the jargon, “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”
– it would require him to disavow cultural relativism
– it would require him to make the case for Israel and that, no, it’s not a genocide in any way shape or form.
Unless we win that battle and the battle to restore the ability to argue rationally and differ peaceably, any attempt to argue for lower taxes will be not just dismissed but shouted down as hateful.
On immigration – as every libertarian used-to-know you can not have “free migration” into a country with government benefits and public services – including “emergency” health care, and education “for the children”. Dishonest people (yes I am calling the Cato Institute and others dishonest) pretend that mass Third World immigration pays for itself by taxation – but that is just not true (they are twisting the figures – as a glance at what is happening in California and New York City shows), and they even pretend that the mass Third World immigration is not crime prone – as if people magically change their culture when they cross the border, Central and South American nations are well known for crime and no magic spell is cast by crossing the American border.
But there is also the broader ideological point – which is part of the Non Aggression Principle, if people enter your country who are AGAINST your country, that is not good – it means future conflict (violence). If large numbers of people enter the United States who say that Americans “stole the land” and that the language should be Spanish (and so on) that is not good – and nor is it “just” a matter of people entering thinking that the wrong side won the wars of the 1830s and 1840s, as far north as New York City (never part of the Spanish Empire) people (from many parts of the world – and their children and children’s children) are open in their hatred (utter hatred) of the United States. They want “land reform” (i.e. land THEFT) and all the rest of the Collectivist tap dance – the sort of thing a certain Gentleman in Rome (although born in the Chicago area) also pushes.
You do not open the gates of the city to people to enemies – that is not a matter of race (before the 1970s Hispanics were not considered a different race) it is a matter of belief – of loyalty. Someone can be pale skinned, blond haired and blue eyed – and still an enemy of the United States – they should not be allowed in either.
“Your asking for an ideological test” – YES, because letting in enemies is insane.
The Supreme Court ruled on this a century ago – an immigrant swore allegiance to the Constitution, and then said he did not mean it – that he despised the Constitution (he was a socialist – he had come to America to do harm, to violate the non aggression principle, to violate the property of others) – the Supreme Court ruled that he be stripped of citizenship and deported from the United States.
The Supreme Court ruled correctly – and this ruling should be applied to several Members of Congress, they (and the “communities” of immigrants who voted them into the House of Representatives) are filled with hatred for the United States – and, therefore, should not have been allowed into the United States, and should be removed from the United States.
As for the establishment who support mass immigration (and natural increase) of people from the Middle East and Asia, and Africa into Europe (and Canada and Australia).
Either the establishment are incredibly stupid – or they are deliberately trying to destroy Western nations.
Not much point discussing economic policy when your nation, your people, are not going to exist any more.
Although, yes, the collapse in Western fertility, caused by the social (cultural) revolution from the 1960s onwards (the destruction of the family and of voluntary groups – both religious and secular), is the other side of this.
“The future belongs to those who turn up for it” as Mark Steyn has been pointing out for decades.
By the way…..
All this applies to Mr Putin – he is NOT an alternative.
The same things, demographic collapse – and the rise of the followers of ISLAM, can be seen in Russia – just as in other Western nations (and Russia is a Western nation).
The Pedant-General…..
“Sir Ed” Davey has accused the Jews of “genocide” – many times.
He knows it is a lie – he knows. Indeed it is the reverse of the truth – for it is the Islamic enemies of the Jews (such as those in Gaza and in Southern Lebanon) who wish to commit genocide.
“He has to say that, in order to compete for votes with the Greens”.
Where does that end?
“I have to exterminate the Jews – because if I do not, I will lose votes to another political party who support this popular policy”.
I thought I’d check on that so I searched for Farage’s recent statements on economics which brought me to this video. TL;DW he’s not anything like as robust as he once was but is probably the best of any of the major party leaders at the moment. He even mentions the debt.
P.S. Many years ago Johnathan was lamenting the economic illiteracy in politics. I responded by saying that Boris and Nigel were on our side. So I am in no position to judge.
Immigration is just one of the symptoms of the much more serious malaise writes Pedant-General.
Yes. I would go even further and say that the rot in our culture is philosophical. We are paying a price for the kind of “reality is what I want it to be” BS that came in reaction to the Enlightenment two hundred years ago, and as a result of certain “secular religons” such as Marxism that claimed that surface “appearances” should be disdained in preference for a more truthful “base” that only certain intellectuals could understand. And then add to how much debate relies on appeals to emotion, not reason. If people talk about cuts to welfare, for example, or tightening admission rules for immigrants, the reaction from some people is to wince the cruelty of it. Never mind the logic.
Would tax cuts be shouted down as “hateful?” That depends how they’re explained. In fact, a shrewd politician could craft the case for them in the language of empowerment, and talk to how, whether you are a lorry driver, shopkeeper, data centre administrator, tech entrepreneur, sports player, lawyer or doctor, you should have more of your own money under your control. Anyone, immigrant or not, atheist, agnostic, religious, etc, can understand the force of that argument, put in intelligent ways. And it can be all of a piece with addressing the other topics you mention.
I responded by saying that Boris and Nigel were on our side. Heh, Patrick, I was no better. I thought BJ was a bit of a showman but had basically liberal (in the correct use of that word) instincts, but as you know, Boris went all in for Net Zero, for example. Farage worries me, even though he is the best of the bunch in some ways on certain topics. Richard Tice seems a fundamentally good egg.
There is another point, which is that economic policy (as opposed to economic theory) is always and everywhere subject to political economy and geopolitics. Unrestricted free trade with an adversary that gains more from it than you do and uses every means available to tilt the scales (i.e. China), while still potentially attractive in Ricardian terms, is foolhardy for the big picture.
The Right must surely pay attention to economic theory, but that does not impel being stupid about it.
I agree. I was addressing several people here who have disagreed with that in the past.
When I read this what I hear is “That Trump guy? He is SO unsophisticated. He is SO tacky. He isn’t one of us.” Of course as soon as you mention George Will you are left with a picture of a sneering man looking down his nose at all those uncouth country hicks that he has to accommodate into his patrician world to get his political way.
The Trump policy is (or at least was) MAGA, it is (or was) entirely focused on growing the American economy at the expense of all others. Now you might not agree with that or think that it is good policy but it is certainly a clearly articulated economic theory.
I have said many times before that macro-economics is mostly bullshit anyway. What is needed is for the government to get out of the way not manipulate tax policy or interest rates or whatever else they want to do. Trumpism does not fully align with that, but it certainly does more than the policies of the insane left, and in politics we have to chose between two or more disgusting options.
Of course Trump has gone completely off the rails. He has forgotten entirely what he was elected for, namely fixing the economy and fixing immigration. And has instead become fascinated by being a big man on the world stage. It is hard for me to express the degree of my disappointment. There was a brief moment when I thought that the American government was at least heading on the right track, and then it all fell apart. Were it back in November 2024 I would not change my vote, but I’d be voting against Harris rather than what I did back then, which was to vote for Trump.
Is there a problem with our economics? I don’t see how there can be, as our economy has been in the hands of EXPERTS. Experts at the Treasury and the Bank of England who employ the lessons of the serious science of economics, which is in no way an unrealistic pile of crap, envy and wishful thinking.
Patrick Crozier – Nigel Farage is about the same as Kemi Badenoch on economic policy, indeed if anything Kemi is to the right of Nigel – although Perry makes the argument that Kemi would not be allowed to do anything as Prime Minister (astonishingly people such as Jeremy Hunt are still Members of Parliament – although they will, I believe, be stepping down at the next General Election).
Johnathan Pearce – I ignored the warning signs about Mr Johnson, then, after he was elected Leader, he gave way on HS2 and started denouncing the (mythical – mythical) “Austerity” “government spending cuts” of David Cameron and George Osborne.
We had a Prime Minister who though that Mr Cameron was too hard line.
Compare Prime Minister Johnson to President Trump.
President Trump should have rejected lockdowns and did not – but at least he insisted that each State government have discretion, which meant that some States, such as Florida, had a very short lockdown – and some States (such as South Dakota) had no lockdown at all. Prime Minister Johnson was just a doormat – he did the British thing of whining and complaining and then OBEYING – obeying every edict from the International Community “experts”.
Immigration – President Trump made promises and kept them, Prime Minister Johnson made promises and broke them (as he did to Northern Ireland over “no border down the Irish Sea”, and as he did to the fishermen), “Trump” makes promises to voters and does what he says he is going to do – “Boris” makes promises to voters and then breaks his word.
High speed rail – President Trump cut off Federal money for the massively corrupt project in California, Prime Minister Johnson just carried on throwing good money after bad on HS2 (a project he himself had denounced – before becoming Prime Minister).
Net Zero – the most stark contrast of all.
“Boris” mocked it (in various articles as a journalist), but then embraced it – regardless of cost.
“Trump” mocked it – and then buried it, thus saving American manufacturing (at least in some States).
What is the difference between the two men – I do not think it is ideology, neither is ideological (I wish they were – but they are not), I think it is something more basic – GRIT.
It gradually dawned on me as I watched Donald J. Trump being savagely tormented over years, including with fake criminal charges before blatantly politically biased judges and juries (yes juries as well) – he could have been destroyed, but he showed no sign of fear, just defiance. His “mug-shot” said it all.
And it was finally confirmed when he was shot – up at once, punching the air and saying “fight-fight-fight”.
Imagine Mr Johnson in that situation – there would have been terror.
Whatever his many faults – “Trump” has grit, and, tragically, “Boris” does not.
Fraser Orr – President Trump has not “gone off the rails”, mass illegal immigration has been stopped and the illegal immigrants in the United States are increasingly “self deporting” as their access to government benefits (and housing, and health care) is restricted.
As for the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) – what part of “Death to America” do you not understand, or has the killing of many Americans over the last 47 years passed you by? Do you need an atomic bomb to explode in major American city to wake you up? President Trump can be faulted, for repeatedly trying to talk to this regime, rather than destroying it – but that is not what you are saying Sir.
bobby b – I apologize for misunderstanding you, irony sometimes passes me by (I am too literal minded – that is a major fault on my part).
rhoda klapp – I think you are doing what bobby b did, using irony.
The attitude of some libertarians to the IRI is just baffling – the IRI regime makes no secret of the fact that it has always hated infidel America, and all infidel nations, and wants to destroy them – so that the 12th (or Hidden) Imam may be hastened in his return to rule the world.
I can understand Leo XIV siding with the IRI (he has just given their ambassador to the Vatican an award – and praised the IRI regime for its work for “peace” – i.e. for sending tens of thousands of Iranians to the peace of death, and planning to send millions of Jews to the peace of death) as Leo (as Robert Prevest) has been engaged in far left anti American activity since at least 1983 (just last year he was at a Marxist conference of Marxist “Popular Movements” – openly expressing his support) – but why do some libertarians have to do the same thing?
I blame the influence of the late Murray Rothbard – who lied about every major foreign policy matter, claiming (for example) that World War II was a “drive to war” by Britain and America against poor-innocent-Nazi-Germany (supposedly we were filled with envy over their trade deals), that the Korean War was not a Communist invasion (that the Americans had started it) and so on.
If Rothbard was alive today I am sure he would be leading support for the Islamic Republic of Iran – chanting Death-to-America with the mob, and not understanding (no more than “Zack” does in Britain) that his Islamic “friends” were only tolerating him as a “useful idiot” and would slit his throat as soon as they stopped using him.
The “Red-Green” alliance (between Marxists and Islamists) is bad enough – without some libertarians backing it.
There’s no real discipline that can forecast an economic statistic more than a few days in the future with any practical degree of precision.
The most you can get is ‘All else being equal, x‘ will eventually increase y‘, or its analogue with ‘decrease’. You’ll rarely find x or y to be quantities that you can measure quickly; more often you need to derive them from measures taken from multiple samples over wide regions. Frankly, I suspect embedding x or y in a subfield of real numbers isn’t always tractable to begin with.
But at least that problem is something that one might be able to overcome with properly trained staff using closely calibrated rigorous language. If you want to drop the qualifier ‘all else being equal’ by stating conditions in which all else actually is equal, you only have bad options:
A Restrict yourself to cases so specific you can’t honestly call them general economic principles.
B Restrict your principles to theoretical exercises, simulations, or games
C Abandon predictive power, and make determining whether any real phenomenon actually qualifies as one of the x‘s or y‘n from your formulation dependent on whether the formula turns out to apply after everything is over.
And, of course, turning that ‘eventually’ into ‘between times a and b‘ has the same sorts of problems.
It’s not like other sciences like physics are free of these sorts of complications; for example, you’ll never find a closed thermodynamic system in real life. Of course, physicists will also admit that their models aren’t universal. For instance, classical physics only covers conditions experienced by humans. Likewise, last I heard, nobody’s quite figured out how to extend quantum physics to astronomical scales, or how to analyze relativity down to quantum scales. By contrast, I’ve gotten offended pushback from commenters here when I’ve said that their economic principles are ‘models’, even when I allow that their models may be entirely correct.
@rhoda klapp absolutely excellent comment. Spot on.
@Paul Marks
mass illegal immigration has been stopped and the illegal immigrants in the United States are increasingly “self deporting” as their access to government benefits (and housing, and health care) is restricted.
He has closed the border which is a good thing, but deportation is very much not a massive ongoing operation and illegal immigrants are not getting kicked off welfare as much as you would think. Unfortunately the incidents in Minneapolis have largely reduced Trump’s willingness to take the political heat, and so he has really backed off.
But what about the economy, his other big promise. It is terrible, we are going to hit Biden level inflation soon.
As for the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) – what part of “Death to America” do you not understand
I understand it fully. It is why I supported the bomber raid to blow up their facilities and be done in one night. But this war is all about trying to bring about regime change even if they pretend it isn’t, and they have not been successful and seem unlikely to be successful. They can contain the threat from Iran by maintaining what they have been doing, after all, for most of my adult life I have been warned that “Iran is weeks ways from a nuclear bomb”. I mean how many times can we hear that and continue to believe that which has been proven false over and over? Our own DNI says that that (ante bellum) they were not close, our own bombing raid Trump assured us destroyed their capacity. So we need to do that. And if we want regime change the US Military is not the way to do it, and it is certainly not the way to do it with a very fickle ally like Israel. I mean we have NATO, we have been paying for it forever, why is this not a NATO operation if the argument is that it is an significant military threat to the USA? If we want regime change giving the Iranian people the weapons they need to do it themselves is “the American way”.
Moreover, the political consequences of this, turning the “leadership of the free world” over to the utterly insane left, are going to be almost as damaging to the world as a small nuclear weapon from Iran anyway. AOC in the Whitehouse and democrat majorities in he senate and house (quickly followed by the USSC) is not much less dangerous than Iran with a small nuclear bomb.
The strategy should be simply: containment with those types of strikes we have been doing, getting the Arab states to take some responsibility for their neck of the woods, and fomenting revolution by the long suffering Iranian people. You want a pro western Iranian government? Killing a lot of Iranian children, fathers, mothers, is not the way to achieve it. Empower the Iranian people to do it rather than the usual paternalistic crap from the American neo cons. It is hard to believe that given the past twenty years of history we STILL seem to think a war in the middle east is the way to go.
But of course I have said this to you a dozen times before Paul so we are clearly not heading toward a meeting of the minds.
@CayleyGraph2015
There’s no real discipline that can forecast an economic statistic more than a few days in the future with any practical degree of precision.
But there is another tool that is VERY good at doing things like setting interest rates or levels or regulation or balancing the costs of welfare against the lost opportunity cost and so on, all the things that economists claim they can do. It is called the free market where a billion minds all work out what best advances their goals and use the mechanism of money to signal those preferences and out of that emerges a pattern of shockingly efficient use of resources.
“macro economics” as a prediction engine is almost completely unreliable. If economists could make accurate predictions they’d all be rich betting on outcomes instead of working in dingy rooms at the Bank of England. Economist is one of those rare professions where you can be wrong all the time and still draw a paycheck. However, if “macro economics” was just wrong (which it almost always is) it would be benign. The biggest problem with macro economics is that its utterly bogus conclusions are used by governments to “plan the economy”. And “plan the economy” usually means “tax people more and take away more of their freedom”. to justify this all in the name of “science”. All in the name of a science that just doesn’t work.
It is kind of like if Pfizer employed a large number of alchemists and witch doctors to design their drugs. The result would not be positive.
Economics is a logical subject – based on the logical principles of human action, it is not (contra Milton Friedman) based on making predictions – economics is not physics. And, as Karl Popper agreed (he did not disagree – as people seem to think) something that is not a physical science is NOT “nonsense” (as the Vienna Circle falsely claimed) it is “non science” – in the sense of not a physical science, not a subject where the methods of physics are useful. That does NOT mean it is not a serious discipline.
Interest rates – these should be decided by lenders lending out Real Savings (the actual sacrifice of consumption) NOT Credit Bubbles and borrowers.
Any effort to “reduce interest rates” by lending out “money” that did not exist before it was lent out, is both economically damaging – and morally evil.
Fraser Orr – yes the war should be to destroy the IRI regime, it must be destroyed (the beast must die). But my fear is that the Trump Administration still does not fully grasp that – we shall have to see.
The political left believes that their governance can solve every problem faced by the electorate, and counts on the electorate not to notice that they caused most of the problems.
The political right holds that that government rules best that rules least, and stands firmly by this belief by aggressively doing nothing at all when elected.
A minimalist left winger, or an activist right winger would seem to be the answer. The first tends to be
an oxymoron, and the second, a unicorn. Reagan and Trump are wannabe unicorns. The bureaucracy is on the side of the left. Government pays their salaries, so the bigger the government, the more secure their salary.
Jonathan,
“Yes. I would go even further and say that the rot in our culture is philosophical. We are paying a price for the kind of “reality is what I want it to be” BS”
That was exactly my point in my next line.
“We’re not going to be able to tackle the underlying socialism-vs-free-markets argument until we’ve rolled back the batshit-insane-po-mo-cultural-relativism-vs-observable-truth nonsense.”
Unfortunately, I stand by that. Your lorry driver already knows fine well that lower taxes will be good for him – he doesn’t need to be convinced.
But you won’t get the groundswell of votes because he can’t tell anyone he agrees with us: the people who tell him that’s hateful will ostracise him for it and make his life hell in a way that we won’t.
Until we have defeated “your words are violence, my violence is protected speech”, we have no chance just talking about economics – indeed, talking about economics might make it _harder_ to win the cultural argument first. (haven’t thought hard about that last point – open to it being tested)
It’s like how Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is based on the logical principles of ‘Increasing the amount of a gas that absorbs a greater proportion of infrared than of visible & ultraviolet light increases the amount of heat retained by light that enters the atmosphere’ and ‘Increased human activity increases the amount of carbon dioxide’.
Unfortunately, CAGW has a higher proportion of adherents who call it predictive than economics.
I’d agree many populist right leaders are more political entrepreneurs. I always thought Boris Johnson was a buffoon and regret voting Tory in 2019 simply because I was worried about Corbyn (in hindsight probably unnecessarily: if the City of London can have someone like Liz Truss removed (who had never been a rebellious minister and had been very pro-establishment in every gvt job she had done) they likely would have engineered Corbyn’s downfall quickly). Farage increasingly comes across as a carnival barker, and the recruitment of high profile Boris Johnson ministers, suggests they have settled on being Tory 2.0.
The negative comparisons with the 1980s have been going on for years but I think they tend to mythologise that decade. Regardless of their rhetoric, Thatcher and Reagan were inconsistent free marketeers, and rather than resurrect laissez-faire, what they mainly achieved was a more efficient form of corporatism with some free market veneer*, which was perfect for the likes of New Labour and New Democrats like Clinton and Obama to inherit and adapt to their own purposes.
* A few examples – utilities privatisation was done in the name of private enterprise/initiative, but many of these utilities in UK are owned or part owned by state owned companies owned by foreign governments.
Also see Big bang in the City of London – a supposedly free market thing yet was immediately followed by a massive expansion of fiat money. Also see the Single European Act the Thatcher government championed. Another supposed ‘free market’ initiative that massively expanded the power of the European Union.
The Pedant-General – yes the “philosophy” (it is more hatred of wisdom, than love of wisdom) that has taken over the education system and the general establishment is utterly false – and utterly evil.
Martin – Mr Johnson was doormat, even when he knew that policies were horribly damaging – he did not have the grit to make a real stand against them.
What Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher dreamed of doing, and what they actually achieved – were two very different things, but they did some good.
Bill Clinton was admirer of the late Governor Huey Long of Louisiana – a man to the left (yes the left) of Franklin Roosevelt, and a crook – a thief.
Barack Obama – when I say he had a Marxist background people scream “paranoid McCarthite”, but the fact remains that Barack Obama had a Marxist background and everything he did was designed (yes designed) to do harm.
Jeremy Corbyn would have been harder to remove than you think.
Liz Truss had the weakness that she CARED – when people said “you have to go – in order to calm the situation” she listened, Jeremy Corbyn (if he had become Prime Minister) might have said “I will bring my supporters on to the streets and burn this country to the ground”.
The Congress in Chile, facing insane chaos in Chile, voted to outlaw President Allende – but he ignored the vote and just carried on.
Thus leaving only the alternative of force.
Jeremy Corbyn is a great admirer of Salvador Allende.
When Corbyn was suspended from Labour by Starmer, where were the protests? There was some grumbling from the left and many left the Labour Party. Very little street theatrics.
Corbyn got some sympathy for a period from elements of the elite dissatisfied about the 2016 EU referendum. Without that bit of elite support, the far left are quite powerless in the UK. See the current fortunes of Corbyn’s current party. The left only riot en masse when they have permission from some part of the elite. This wouldn’t have been present if the City and civil service turned the screws on a PM Corbyn. The media would have got behind how he would have to go and be replaced by someone more ‘responsible’ like Keir Starmer. Just as Liz Truss was replaced by someone presented as a safer pair of hands.
There were a lot of claims that there would be mass riots in response to Donald Trump’s election in 2024. This did not happen. This is because massive protest movements and mass riots only occur when they have a measure of elite backing. A large section of American elites supported BLM, so BLM rioting was allowed to escalate in 2020. There was no major elite backing for mass mobilisation of crowds to stop Trump’s inauguration, so there was no mass outbreak of riots.
I doubt Corbyn, even with at his best performance back then was capable of winning a majority for Labour, and would have at best for him had either a minority government or had to have a coalition with parties like the SNP and Lib Dems etc. Either outcome would have made it easier to Corbyn to be gotten rid of as well.
I should add that spontaneous protests and riots do occur but without some kind of elite backing or immaculate vanguard organisation the protests achieve nothing and riots crushed rapidly. See the London riots in 2011 or the riots in response to Southport massacre a few years ago – crushed quickly.
And what effect did this have on the actual policies Bill Clinton’s actually pursued as president? I see NAFTA, support for setting up the WTO, the repeal of Glass-Steagall banking regulations, the Commodity Futures Modernisation act, there was welfare reform, telecoms deregulation, and federal budget surpluses for the last 4 years of his presidency.
Much of this was championed at the time by free market think tanks and publications. Now I would say it was more the kind of ‘more efficient corporatism’ that Thatcher and Reagan delivered than anything really akin to nineteenth century liberalism. But it’s still not really what I suspect Huey Long would have supported.
Huey Long was also an isolationist. Bill Clinton’s foreign policy was not isolationist at all.
“what effect did it have on his policies” – higher taxes and the drive for universal government health care, although that was (for a time) blocked by the Republicans controlling Congress from 1995 onwards.
Again what Mr and Mrs Clinton did was bad – but what they WANTED to do was vastly worse – indeed the hero of Mrs Clinton was Saul Alinsky.
As for Corporatism – yes I agree with you Martin that Corporations should NOT be favored by tax law (I think Milton Friedman was wrong about that) or by regulations.
However, I hope we agree that what should be done is that the higher rates of Income Tax should be reduced, not that Corporation Tax should be increased (the latter would be the wrong sort of “level playing field”) – ditto individual shareholders should not be taxed more than Pension Fund shareholders (the “institutions” now own the vast majority of shares – because of tax law and regulations) – but that does NOT mean that pensions should be undermined with higher taxes – but, rather, that individuals should see taxes upon them reduced – including Capital Gains Tax and Inheritance Tax.
As for regulations – it is clear that the vast web of regulations undermine small business enterprises and hand the economy over to vast Corporations – whose legal departments (and so on) can deal with the vast web of regulations – which individual and family owned small business enterprises can NOT deal with.
Here, again, we agree Martin.
To those who do not know (Martin clearly DOES know – but other people may not), the claim of the late Milton Friedman that Corporations should not be taxed (not even have a lower rate of taxation, which is the case now, not be taxed AT ALL), because they just represent individual shareholders – and the only taxation should be when money is sent to these individuals, is just WRONG.
It is bizarre (and terrible) that Corporations are taxed at a lower rate than individuals and families, and can deduct their local property taxes from their income before it is subject to national taxation – although this does NOT mean that taxes on Corporations should be increased, it means that taxes on individuals and families should be reduced.
It is not dishonest (Milton Friedman sincerely seems to have believed that Corporations represent “Aunt Agatha” style individual share owners – and that their managers have no independent interests) – but it is wrong, utterly wrong.
And it is a very old mistake – for example William Burke and his more famous kinsman Edmund Burke first tried to reform the East India Company (the most important Corporation of their time) internally – by acting as individual share holders, but they found that the managers of the company could not care less about the wishes (or interests) of little individual shareholders – that the managers were acting on their own desires, in a corporate bureaucracy.
And anyone who has dealt with modern vast Corporations knows this is still true – and that modern vast Corporations are still joined at the hip with the state and are still bureaucracies.
I have to admit that David Hume (whose philosophy I so often attack) had a better understanding of Corporations than Milton Friedman (centuries later) did – and had a better understanding of the shell-game (con-game – fraud) that modern “banking” is.
David Hume is famous now – far more famous than philosophers, such as Thomas Reid, who were more influential (I think rightly more influential) in his own time (more influential with the American Founding Fathers and others) – yet (bizarrely) where he did indeed have important things to say (such as criticism of Corporations and Credit Bubble banking) his words are totally ignored in the modern world. Perhaps, perhaps, this is because the criticism of Mr Hume was aimed at entities who are now vastly more powerful than they were in the 1700s. The only money that an ordinary person is likely to have seen back then (or, indeed, even much later) would have been gold, silver and copper coins – and most ordinary people would not (back then – or even into the 20th century) have had much experience of vast Corporations – being more likely to deal with (and be employed by – if not self employed) enterprises owned by an individual or family.
Before Martin points it out – yes indeed 19th Century Classical Liberals were indeed often very critical of the idea of Corporations (see, for example, the words of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 on government benefits to Corporations – that Constitution is NOT all about race, and race is NOT the reason the left hate that Constitution – although they pretend that racism is the reason they hate it), let alone such Corporations getting favorable tax treatment – on top of of the government gift of limited liability, and very critical of Credit Bubble banking (lending out “money” that did not exist before it was lent out – that was never Real Savings, the actual sacrifice of consumption) – hence the 19th century saying……
“Free trade in banking is free trade in swindling”.
President Taft agreed to a Federal Corporation Tax – but had doubts about a Federal Income Tax (especially if it was “Progressive” – i.e. graduated – different percentages of tax at different levels of income).
I wonder what even this polite man (later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court – a well known figure walking across Washington to get to and from work, walking because he had a weight problem and reduced his weight that way, as well as by a strict diet – Taft found that genetically he needed little food, indeed if he ate the same amount as other people he became fat) would have said if the following had been put to him…..
“We should tax individuals – but NOT Corporations, because Corporations just represent individual shareholders and have no independent interests”.
This (Milton Friedman style) position is so wrong (so utterly wrong) that it is hard to be polite about it – and that is even if all shares were owned by individuals, whereas (today) only a small fraction of shares are owned by individuals.
Indeed the last year where even 51% of shares were owned by individuals in Britain was 1965 – let alone all shares.
A similar reaction is logical when faced with the late Professor Friedman’s position on Right to Work laws (i.e. laws against people being forced to join unions) – he was against them (yes – against such protection from coercion), or his position on banking (unlike the old Chicago School of the 1920s and 1930s – Professor Friedman seemed to see nothing wrong with Credit Bubble banking), or his position on Speenhamland – i.e. wage subsidies funded by taxation, which he supported – under the name of a Negative Income Tax (and would have given to people who were not working at all – even if they were fit and able to work).
It is all baffling.