Back in the 1980s one of the political phrases that came into vogue was “supply-side economics.” It was demagogued by the left on two fronts. First, critics insinuated that only the rich got tax cuts; in reality, Kemp-Roth tax reduction was across-the-board. Second, they misrepresented the supply-side concept as “trickle-down economics” – wealth transfer to the rich intended to spur business activity that will “trickle down” to lower income brackets.
One problem with the slur is that it regards tax cuts as a subsidy, basically the same as funding stadiums with tax dollars. In reality, tax cuts are the opposite of wealth transfer. Quoting Rush Limbaugh from memory, “It ain’t yer [the government’s] money.” Another is that it equates supply with the rich. Many businesses are not run by the rich. There are rich people (e.g. Randi Weingarten) who may invest in producers but do not produce anything directly; their direct economic activity is limited to consumption and/or rent-seeking.
The greater problem is that the “trickle-down” canard treats tax policy as the only factor relevant to spurring or hindering supply. Even as a political novice who had yet to hear the name Thomas Sowell I was able to figure out that supply-side economics concerned all such factors, and that demand-side economics revolved around all obstacles to consumption. Taxation is an impediment to both. The other great factor that government must address is its own laws. Regulations prohibit some or all parties from entering certain industries, or (more relevant to this discussion) they impose compliance costs on producers.
Likewise, demand-side economics should also address all barriers to consumption and not just tax rates (or resort to subsidy). If some regulations can depress supply, what other regulations depress demand?
Political Philosophy
The Long Haul of Woke
I came across this essay by N.S. Lyons and it took me a minute to realize that it was a reprint from three years ago on his Substack. Yet after all that time and all that has happened (and is happening) it remains as timely as ever.
Why?
As Lyons writes in his editor’s note to the reprint:
Today, with the second Trump administration in power, we have seen a sledgehammer taken to those DEI programs, as well as other manifestations of wokeness such as transgender mania. Again, many observers are pronouncing the demise of the revolution. It is always dangerous to declare victory prematurely, while the enemy can yet strike back.
Much, it is true, has changed; but much remains the same. The original essay lists twenty different reasons to be skeptical of the sudden demise of wokeness. Of those, several, including the observation that woke racial bookkeeping was effectively required by law (#15), that it maintained control of all the levers of power within government (#19), and that government was intent on leveraging the ideology to expand its bureaucratic power (#20), have perhaps now been largely overturned. But others, such as the observation that wokeness functions as a pseudo-religion that fills a spiritual and communal void in our culture, or that the “overproduction” of college-educated elites makes our society particularly susceptible to radicalization, seem as relevant as ever.
Brennan, JD Vance, and the Spirit of 1776
I’m sure most of you by now have heard of Margaret Brennan’s comment during her exchange with Secretary of State Rubio on “Face the Nation.”
“Well he was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide…”
Brennan got raked over the coals by the Right for that comment, since she seemed to imply that the Nazis 1) were in favor of free speech and 2) were using free speech to conduct the Holocaust in the same way they used gas chambers and bullets. Her point, that words are violent (I thought it was silence that was violence), was reinforced by the fact that Vance’s speech brought the chairman of the Munich Security Conference to tears.
Mr. Heusgen is obviously a man who doesn’t think about the Roman Empire every day.
DOGE is an Oxymoron: Unchecked “Democracy” is the Problem
Unlike the private sector, where operational efficiency is necessary to survive, the public sector is and always has been inherently inefficient. But that’s not the main problem. Think of federal public polices justified as being in the “public interest” as a building. On the upper floors are the best of them, the merely inefficient. At the mezzanine level are those suffering from extensive waste, fraud and abuse. On the ground floor are policies and programs rife with self-dealing and crony capitalism. Down in the basement is the “temple of virtue” where taxpayers are sacrificed to multiple ideological isms.
DOGE is peeking inside the locked doors on all four levels. As DOGE exposes “Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap,” politicians cry foul, as “they were implemented (by us) democratically. To paraphrase Churchill, “democracy is less bad than totalitarianism,” but, he might have added “generally worse than competitive private markets.” At this stage in US democracy, DOGE revelations have lost some of their shock value as commonplace, and politicians emphasize their good intent. DOGE needs to demonstrate that “good intentions” often lead to bad outcomes, and do not justify corruption in any case.
DOGE alone can only win a few skirmishes against Congress and its massive army of rent-seekers feeding off their largess. With public understanding and support, the Trump Administration could bring about more permanent structural changes that provide greater voter control.
Life is a Competition
Americans love sports, from 5 & 6-year-old soccer leagues through high school, college and pro teams, where the competition to succeed is intense. Pro sports is a business, as the recent Luka Donic trade to the Lakers reminds us, with winners and losers. It is incredibly “democratic” as millions of fans choose what players to follow, games to attend or stream at the posted price, and owners respond continuously to fan expectations. The competition is subject to a massive set of complicated rules and limitations enforced by referees and judges whose integrity is subjected to coaches’ challenge, instant replay and fan fury. That reflects the system of checks and balances that a competitive private market incorporates.
Now imagine a pro sports league designed and governed by the most honest and altruistic national politicians. They would deem it unfair to pay some athletes more than others, or to exclude the weak or physically impaired from the competition. Winners would be determined by political deal making in smoke-filled back rooms. Prices would be determined according to “ability to pay” and ticket purchases would be mandatory whether or not attending the games, with revenues first flowing through party coffers. Fans would be told who to root for and losing teams and cities would be declared winners so as not to result in hurt feelings. Voting against this system would result in your team being designated the loser but you would still be required to buy the tickets. That’s a metaphor for our current “altruistic” federal democracy.
What do American Indians Have to be Thankful For?
Much of the modern left views the migration of Europeans to the Americas as one of history’s greatest tragedies. This cynicism represents a failure to examine both sides of the balance sheet, to recognize both good and bad consequences of trans-Atlantic colonization, as well as the consequences of having no European colonization at all. The answer to the question posed in the title comes down to at least four items.
Access to advanced technology. Recall this quote from Life of Brian: “All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” One can nitpick and identify a few things the Judeans already had (e.g. wine), but overall the Romans significantly improved infrastructure that increased quality of life. The technological gap between Renaissance Europeans and pre-Columbian Americans was vastly greater. The Europeans also brought a non-technological advance that benefited some tribes in the short term: the horse.
And end to the constant threat of warfare. Before Europeans displaced the American natives, the natives were displacing each other. Such is life in a continent where one can find little land that isn’t frontier. As nation-states emerged and maintained long-term power, warfare became a less frequent concern.
Rule of law and relative freedom under the law. These principles evolved in Northern Europe and especially in England. They were exported to the Anglosphere colonies where they were developed further. Latin America was settled by the most autocratic region of Western Europe; centuries of existential threat under Moorish rule is not the sort of environment that breeds high-cooperation societies. Democratic reforms eventually came to many parts of the region with varying degrees of success.
The Chinese did not colonize the Americas. If Ming Dynasty maritime exploration had taken a different turn…
Happy Thanksgiving!