Why is leftist Larry Summers slamming Donald Trump over central planning?

Here is a prediction: we are going to see a lot of hypocrisy from the left over the next four years (if that is anything really new).

The latest instance of this comes from none other than former United States Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Writing in an op-ed in the Washington Post this week, Summers slammed President-Elect Donald Trump for interfering in the economy by stealing from Indiana taxpayers and providing handouts to corporations to stay in the U.S., citing the Carrier deal from last week.

Here is what Summers wrote:

Last week, I was sharply critical of President-elect Donald Trump’s effort to pressure Carrier into keeping jobs in Indiana, on the grounds that it was a step toward degrading American capitalism from being rules-based to being deals-based. The Carrier case has generated much discussion, so I want to follow up and make clear why my concerns are now considerably greater than they were even last week.

First, no one should be confused: This was more of a mugging than a bribe. The tax incentives offered by Indiana total $7 million over 10 years, or less than $1,000 per job-year. Incentives at this level would be standard in any business location decision. So, given the stakes involved, the decision was surely based on a reasonable judgment by United Technologies (the parent company of Carrier) that it did not want to be on the wrong side of the incoming president.

Second, the president-elect made clear that he wanted the deal to be seen as a precedent and would plan on pursuing policies of this kind in the future. It polled well and was hailed by some, such as Peggy Noonan and Steven Pearlstein, as successful symbolic politics. On the current trajectory, micro-intervention policies are surely likely to grow, so the question of their ultimate consequences is not a small one.

Third, apart from the process and values questions stressed in my distinction between rules and deals capitalism, there is a certain incoherence in the economics here. If it is cheaper to produce air conditioners in Mexico than in America, won’t Mexican production by non-American companies ultimately render Carrier in Indiana noncompetitive? If Carrier does not export capital to Mexico, won’t Mexico run a larger surplus with America? And isn’t this what the president-elect sees as bad? If foreign companies are allowed to run production chains that include Mexico and American companies are not, won’t American employment ultimately suffer?

But central planning is all what the left is about. They have been championing centralized planning and economic interventions for the past eight years. Now, all of a sudden, they are getting what they want but they are warning against it.

They’re going to be in for quite a surprise when Donald Trump starts enacting many of the policies that the likes of Summers and Paul Krugman have advocated for for years. (We’re already beginning to see Krugman backtrack on what he has been writing about for the last decade.)

It’s going to be similar to foreign policy. The anti-war lefties have been silent for the past eight years, despite President Obama’s continuation and expansion of his predecessor’s foreign policy. When Trump does something militant in the Middle East, the anti-war left will finally rise out of their slumber.