Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is gradually gaining momentum, climbing to third place in national polls. Warren’s Trump-esque economic diatribes about protecting American workers and creating U.S. jobs have been catching the eye of one prominent conservative political commentator: Tucker Carlson. On his show, he championed Warren’s recent statements that asserted public policy has encouraged American businesses to ship jobs and capital overseas and suppress wages at home to appease multinational corporations. After quoting an excerpt of her speech, he said that no Republican would dare utter such words out of fear of violating a principle of Austrian economics or irking libertarian ideologues. While Carlson is great at lambasting foreign policy, shedding light on the asinine social justice movement, and calling out the elite, he oftentimes falls short on economics – and his recent comments prove it.
GOP Beholden to Austrians?
In April 2017, Steve Bannon, then-White House Chief Strategist, criticized Republicans who are too fixated on the teachings of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. He contended that “all this theoretical Cato Institute, Austrian Economics, limited government” advocacy “doesn’t have any depth to it,” adding that these folks are “not living in the real world.”
On his ratings juggernaut program, Carlson essentially echoed this sentiment. But here are the follw-up questions: Does Carlson really believe that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) backs the end to fiat money? Does the Fox News personality think Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) uses Mises’s Human Action has his guiding force when voting on bills? Does the populist figure see the entire GOP as an entity that calls for abolishing the Federal Reserve System, eliminating the welfare state in its entirety, and removing all tariffs and trade barriers?
It is true that some Republicans will advance ideas of free market capitalism and fiscal conservatism, but most of the party does not practice these theories once they attain power. When the GOP controlled the White House and Congress, what happened? Deficit-financed spending, tariffs on imported goods, bailouts to farmers, and a whole host of policies that were antithetical to libertarian economic theory.
Even the people who have been nominated since the days of former President Ronald Reagan have been adversative to Austrian theory and libertarianism, from former President George H.W. Bush to former Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) to former Senator John McCain (R-AZ). Nobody would ever associate former President George W. Bush with seminal libertarian economists Thomas Sowell or Milton Friedman.
In this century, the Republican Party has given the American people Medicare Part D, trillions of dollars in debt, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and trade wars. These already violated Austrian principles and perturbed libertarian ideologues, so why would the GOP suddenly be worried about offending 0.05% of the population? Republicans can talk the talk when it is the opposition and during election season, but once it holds the keys to Washington, the elephants will keep the Ex-Im Bank, pass unbalanced budgets, and embrace protectionism. In fact, the best thing about the party is that it is not the wacky Democrats of today.
Morning in America
Let’s concede, for the sake of argument, that the Republican Party is mainly comprised of politicians who studied at the Mises Institute, worked directly with Walter Block, and worshipped Ayn Rand. How is this a bad thing for American workers?
Free market capitalism has been and continues to be beneficial for every American worker – the skilled and unskilled, educated and uneducated.
On a fundamental, economic theory level, working for a company in a capitalist economy offers a wide variety of benefits. For instance, workers will earn paychecks right away rather than waiting for produced goods to be manufactured, shipped, transported, distributed, and sold. Or, as another example, when employees offer their human capital to businesses, they are not bearing any risk should the private enterprise endure losses. They can also sell their expertise to another employer at a higher cost, should they prove that they will generate more in productivity and profit than they would cost.
But the neo-right and leftists share something in common: They typically portray the U.S. economy as this grim wasteland where everyone is on the brink of destitution because 21st-century robber barons are fleeing the country to whip the Chinese populace to manufacture more t-shirts. The only way to rectify this poverty, inequality, and a return to a morning in America is government policy – of course, they never consider the central bank as the chief culprit in inequality.
Is this what is really happening in the U.S. today? Well, the data prove otherwise.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the weaker-than-expected May jobs report, which showed that average hourly wages climbed another six cents to just under $28 (all-time high). Overall net capital inflows (the amount of capital coming into the country) have been in positive territory for much of the last 40 years, though there have been declines this year, likely as a result of the trade war. The poorest of Americans have higher living standards than a lot of middle-class Europeans. The U.S. is still a manufacturing powerhouse, producing a diverse array of goods, such as aerospace technology, energy, automobiles, chemicals, and much more – output has doubled in just three decades.
Do critics want the U.S. to return to the days of sweatshops and snowglobes?
Indeed, the U.S. has many gaping holes that need to be plugged, but a lot of the problems facing the world’s largest economy stem from the state. Since they demand less, not more, government, you can hardly blame Austrians, libertarians, or the Koch brothers.
Take a Hayek
Libertarians can only dream of taking over the Republican Party. But, similar to the Mises wing of the Libertarian Party, they are often cast out like lepers in the GOP.
Just look at Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) recent attempts to return the nation to fiscal sanity. The Tea Party favorite recently proposed legislation to balance the budget and cut spending by 2%, but most Republicans shot him down and refused to even vote on the bill. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) received grief from his colleagues because he helped block a $19 billion federal disaster aid package.
Is this the beginning of a beautiful friendship between populists and leftists? The neoconservatives and left formed an alliance on foreign policy, demanding bombing campaigns just to contradict and oppose Trump. It seems the neo-right and Democrats will partner to disparage capitalists, diminish free markets, and propose government solutions to problems the Leviathan created in the first place.
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