Populism Overload

Fire of Liberty

Jonah Goldberg has a great column in today's LA Times about how the current turn towards protectionistic populism with regards to issues like free trade and the most recent dust-up of Dubai Ports World will result in a devastating decline in our economic fortunes rather than enhancing it. Take a look:

Liberals are naturally sympathetic to socialistic arguments, conservatives to nationalistic ones. But to everyone's benefit these two outlooks have been quarantined in different parties. Conservatives have been culturally nationalistic but economically liberal (in the classical sense). Liberals have been economically nationalistic — on healthcare, regulation, taxes, unions — but culturally liberal. Although it's been quite painful for them, this cultural liberalism has kept the Democratic Party in favor of free trade and immigration. Protectionism hurts foreigners and poor Americans, after all.

Indeed, to be fair, the Democratic Party has been heroic in bucking its base — the economically nationalistic labor movement — on free trade. FDR, Truman and Kennedy were all consummate economic nationalists. Free trade was tactically in their interests for a long time because it dovetailed with labor's interest. When the United States stopped being the manufacturer to the world, the Democratic Party struggled — not always successfully — to stay pro-trade on principle, even at the cost of votes. Meanwhile, the GOP has had the opposite challenge: to stay pro-free trade even as its ranks swell with working-class voters enamored with their paychecks, not Adam Smith.

Now, a win-at-all-costs Democratic Party has realized that this is the perfect moment for it to re-brand all of its economic ideas in the language of patriotism. Many Republicans are determined to fight the Democrats for this turf. So they too are bending their economic policies to fit their cultural conservatism.

I for one hope that the Republicans would read some economics books or at least follow the economics of Ronald Reagan and get away from the rabble-rousing "beat the Democrats to the punch" nonsense that they're currently partaking in. But the politicians love their polls and prefer getting re-elected than standing on the principles they were originally elected on.