A thought for Sunday: the Left is winning the battle of ideas. The right’s own man says so
by New Deal democrat
A thought for Sunday: the Left is winning the battle of ideas. The right’s own man says so
Prof. Arnold Kling, a conservative neoclassical economist who has taught at George Mason University and been affiliated with the Cato Institute, has a post up this morning in which he reflects upon whether he has changed his mind about anything in view of developments over the last sum of years. His reply is a notable bellwether:
I think that in general I have become more pessimistic about American political culture ….
…. What has [ ] transpired …… from college campuses [is a] view that capitalism is better than socialism, which I think belongs in the mainstream, seems to be on the fringe. Meanwhile, the intense, deranged focus on race and gender, which I think belongs on the fringe, seems to be mainstream…..
…. The Overton Window on health policy has moved to where health insurance is a government responsibility. The Overton Window on deficit spending and unfunded liabilities has moved to where there is no political price to be paid for running up either current debts or future obligations. The Overton Window on financial policy has moved to where nobody minds that the Fed and other agencies are allocating credit, primarily toward government bonds and housing finance. The Overton Window on the Administrative State has moved to where it is easier to mount a Constitutional challenge against an order to remove regulations than against regulatory agency over-reach.
I would call that a good start.
That being said, as usual I expect progress will be made one funeral at a time, as the deep, deep red Silent Generation (and primary Fox News demographic) passes this mortal coil.
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A postscript. Kling concludes by writing:
Outside of the realm of politics, things are not nearly so bleak. Many American businesses and industries are better than ever, and they keep improving. Scientists and engineers come up with promising ideas.
I wonder if it occurs to him that these sentences completely undercut his ideology. After all, if evil government regulation kills innovation, well, obviously, despite the shifts in the Overton Window to the left, that obviously isn’t happening, is it?
Furthermore, if that innovation has been happening during the period of time that the Brookings Institution found, via comprehensive Social Security wage data, that workers from 1983 on made only 1% more in real terms over their entire 30 year prime age careers than the workers who entered their prime earnings age in 1957, then that innovation has not translated into *any* significant increase in the well-being of average Americans over virtually their entire working lifetimes. That is a thoroughgoing and decisive failure, well worth being replaced.
I would be optimistic if I thought Kling is right. I think the truth is more nuanced. For instance, on economic issues, the right has won. Completely. It is hard to see a situation whereby we go back to pre-1980s tax policy, or trade policy. The run-a-deficit-regardless-of-what-you-say-publicly policy of Ronald Reagan doesn’t look like its going to get toppled any time soon either. (Clinton made an effort to reverse it, but it didn’t survive his term.) And of course, the notion that its a good thing to have unlimited low-skilled immigration which kills wages for the working class is now part of what you are required to state aloud in order to be accepted as a Democrat these days. If conservatives have lost anywhere in the economic sphere, it might be on externalities: pollution control, safety regulations, etc.
Unfortunately, winning an argument and being right are two very different things. Yes, Conservatives have gotten St. Ronald’s World when it comes to economic policy, but it hasn’t produced the sort of outcomes St. Ronald et. al. promised. Instead, growth is (and has been, for decades now) mediocre, and will continue be so as long as St. Ronald is the Prophet whose words we deem holy.
Where Democrats have won is on social issues. Gay rights, women’s rights, equal opportunity, etc. That’s mostly good. But even there, we have problem. Democrats have a tendency to push some of these issues way too far and to side with the extremists, which is particularly obvious in academia which is the tip of the spear for social issues.
For example – in a sane universe, the Sokal Hoax should have caused the end of much of postmodernism and everything related to it. Instead, today one can boost the silliness of Sokal’s paper up a couple orders of magitude (http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/conceptual-penis-social-contruct-sokal-style-hoax-on-gender-studies/) and get the same results. And let’s call it like it is: the people who take the various forms of divisive bullshit that are propagating like weeds on college campuses, the people responsible for (nay, who are) the replication crisis, the people calling for other people to die (example: http://www.kbtx.com/content/news/Texas-AM-President-responds-to-professors-controversial-comments-421952594.html) are people kow-towed to by not the Republicans, but the Democrats.
So yeah, its nice that many social issues have moved forward. But conservatives have won the economic war. We live in a slow growth era as a result. And while Democrats have won on social issues, in the past decade or so, it hasn’t been mainstream Democrats, but rather the Democrat fringe that has gotten itself into position to define the cutting edge of what is and what isn’t acceptable. None of this bodes well.
“that innovation has not translated into *any* significant increase in the well-being of average Americans over virtually their entire working lifetimes.”
Oh, really? That is RIDICULOUS.
” Most ordinary Americans in 2016 are richer than was John D Rockefeller in 1916.” “By the middle class standards of today that lifestyle was poor, inconvenient, dreary and dangerous.”
” … workers from 1983 on made only 1% more in real terms over their entire 30 year prime age careers than the workers who entered their prime earnings age in 1957, then that innovation has not translated into *any* significant increase in the well-being of average Americans over virtually their entire working lifetimes.”
That is what happens when even though:
“[m]any American businesses and industries are better than ever, and they keep improving. Scientists and engineers come up with promising ideas.”
labor union density is 6% in the private economy. For what happens when high union density is mixed with — businesses and industries better than ever — look to Europe; Germany to Denmark; maybe look at Canada (French Canada has centralized bargaining I believe — important help).
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I’ve been screaming around and spamming around that states can make union busting a felony — and make America over completely. Maybe the Dems are waiting to get closer to election time — Repubs would have no place to hide, with just the folks the left wants back (even if the college left for the most part doesn’t know they’re alive; but knows sit wants their votes). But I suspect it’s just inertia.
I’m going to start looking into how to get making union busting a felony on the ballot in states across the country. Know zero about that now — but I know we get to vote on ballot initiatives in some (all?) states. I’m going to try to get unions alerted to the possibility — if it is possible. Don’t know how they can say no once they understand.
DD,
What possible reason can you have for thinking that a party hell bent on increasing the supply of labor that competes with unions would have any interest whatsoever in the survival of those unions?
Mike,
The Obama/Clinton Dems may not care whether the blue collar live or die — but they sure as hell care about this: Trump won by trading places with Obama.
NYT’s Nate Cohn: “Just as Mr. Obama’s team caricatured Mr. Romney, Mr. Trump caricatured Mrs. Clinton as a tool of Wall Street” … “[Mr. Obama] would have won Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin each time even if Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee had been severed from their states and cast adrift into the Great Lakes.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/upshot/how-the-obama-coalition-crumbled-leaving-an-opening-for-trump.html
The sure fire way for Dems to get labor back — if you ask me and hopefully if you ask them — is to try to return working folks’ own power to them via rebuilding union density (win or lose: the O/Cl’s mostly want their votes). Of course they may far away from understanding now (at bottom “Obama doesn’t care”). That’s where ballot measures (whatever they may be — may take me a couple of months to get up to speed on that) can come in. Do-it-ourselves.
I don’t think immigrants would be a big drag on native jobs if we had high union density — and — centralized bargaining (sector wide labor agreements). In Denis Drew theory, collective bargaining sets the price of labor by how much can be squeezed out of consumers — rather than — how much can be squeezed out of the most vulnerable laborers.
IOW, fast food jobs will start to fill up with Americans (first): better English, understandable common culture, better education. Ditto for construction jobs, etc., etc. In Denis Drew theory anyway.
I think building an elaborate defensive wall to keep out poor Mexicans who want to pick fruit will make us the laughingstock of the world. A regular Maginot Line. :-O
” Most ordinary Americans in 2016 are richer than was John D Rockefeller in 1916.”
That statement is so ridiculous that it does not deserve comment.
Jerry,
Read the link.
I will only note the obvious which seems to have been overlooked somehow.
The right, which by and large means “conservatives” have by definition and historical use of the term therefore also it’s meaning only proposed either maintaining the status quo as is, or reversing it to achieve a prior a state of being from the yearned for “good ol days” when men were men and women children, and ‘ni…. ‘s knew their place (because the only legitimate ruler is a christian god as they make that god up to be in their own image), and especially when the wealthy had their way in al things.
So the facts of the matter in real life is that conservatives will always be and always approximate 50% of the population’s electorate… and they will continue to push back on any gains made in any way by and for the “masses” benefits simply because they fear change, or have a vested interest in not making changes.
Any gains made will come despite vehement opposition by conservatives as a result of disasters that shake up people’s understanding of things, as occurrred as a result of the Great Depression, for example, or improving the state of understanding more or less summarized as cosmopolitanism as opposed to nationalism, individualism, constitutionalism, religionism, racism, & genderism.
DD,
Bill Clinton told Hilary that she should wander over to the Midwest and talk about jobs. But he was just an old white guy, so what would he know. I’m not sure how many Democrats have figured out this is about jobs as opposed to the standard answer that its about racism and misogyny.
Jerry,
I made an assertion that the average American today has a better life than a billionaire 100 years ago, and backed it by examples. You made an assertion that that is ridiculous and backed it by………..nothing. Who are you that you can simply state an opinion and it is a fact?
Oh Sammy. Read the title of the article. It said “richer”, not “better life”. I shouldn’t have to inform you that richer is not the same as better life, espically when you compare 100 years ago with today. And that is a fact, not opinion.
Jerry,
More assertions. I am waiting for some examples of how a billionaire 100 years ago has a better life than an ordinary American today……..
Sammy,
It is not about a better life. Your assertion was about being richer. Let me quote your statement.
” Most ordinary Americans in 2016 are richer than was John D Rockefeller in 1916.
Your example, did not assert that ”most ordinary Americans in 2016 are richer than was John D Rockefeller in 1916.” It asserted that life is better now. So what? You were talking about being richer.