Posted on 11/16/2006 5:21:41 AM PST by .cnI redruM
Since the elections, some have claimed that the victories of a few 'moderate' Democrats represents movement of the Democratic Party towards the center. I'm not convinced. Certainly, some of the newly elected Democrats have been somewhat more conservative on social issues, but it's very hard to see how that will lead to more conservative policies. If you think the Kennedy and Pelosi wing of the Democratic Party are suddenly going to submit, e.g., pro-gun or anti-abortion legislation, you haven't been paying attention.
Instead, the occasional, putative 'conservatism' from some new Democrats has been a cover for their economic views — most of which are decidedly liberal. For example, in today's Wall Street Journal, Jim Webb writes that "our government leaders have no greater duty than to confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization."
This is the same Jim Webb who, according to the Associated Press, "laced his speech with paraphrases of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels" during the campaign. And now that he's in office, he doesn't appear to be done with the Folk Marxism. A few more specific objections:
WEBB WRITES: "America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years."
RESPONSE: "Infinitely"? I do not think that word means what you think it means.
WEBB WRITES: "It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country."
RESPONSE: "literally"? I do not think that word means what you think it means.
WEBB WRITES: "Few among them send their children to public schools"
RESPONSE: So the Democrats will vote for school vouchers, allowing anybody who chooses to send their children to the private schools? No. What is his solution then...would he criminalize private schooling?
WEBB WRITES: "fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars."
RESPONSE: I've warned you, it's the Democrats who would bring back the draft. They'll call it "fairness".
WEBB WRITES: "They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people."
RESPONSE: ...and yet, it was the Democrats who opposed Social Security Personal Accounts, which would have increased working class investment in the stock market.
WEBB WRITES: "The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980."
RESPONSE: Note that Webb uses 1980 for comparison. That was the lowest point of the percentage of income of the top 1%. Not coincidentally, that period in which the top 1% had a lower share of national income coincided with confiscatory income tax rates approaching 70%.
By the way, in 1999-2000, the top 1%'s share of pre-tax income was over 20%.
WEBB WRITES: "Manufacturing jobs are disappearing."
RESPONSE: As Donald Boudreaux points out, "True. Contrary to his suggestion, though, this fact is unrelated to recent trends in globalization, corporate governance, or tax policy. Manufacturing jobs as a percentage of the U.S. work force peaked in 1945 and have declined steadily ever since - even though manufacturing output continues to rise. Today this output is at an all-time high."
Even assuming that free people cannot be trusted to set prices in the United States, the typical Democratic 'solutions' are, as Greg Mankiw writes, "inefficient and poorly targeted ways to redistribute income". I don't find the Democrats Folk Marxism appealing in the least, but—if we must have it—there are better and worse ways to reduce income inequality. Democrats seem determined to find the worst ways.
If you want evidence of that, consider what Jim Webb writes about a piece in The Economist: A recent survey in the Economist warned that globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other "First World" nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that "unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash" in America that would take us away from what they view to be the "biggest economic stimulus in world history." Here's the part he left out: The trouble is that, in a globalised economy, policies aimed at fleecing companies will fail to spread the rewards more widely. Firms will simply move to a more congenial environment. The best way to boost national economic prosperity is to make labour and product markets work more efficiently, speed up the shift of jobs from old industries to better-paying new ones, and improve education and training to prepare workers for tomorrow’s jobs. Jim Webb seems concerned about inequality — moreso than he is about, say, personal freedom. Unfortunately, he — and the Democrats in general — seem less than unconcerned about the unintended consequences of their personal peeves.
UPDATE:
Some commenters and bloggers seem to have misunderstood this to some extent. I'm saying that Webb and many new Democrats are fairly Folk Marxist in their approach — that they have a 'class struggle' perspective in which they pit “the oppressors against the oppressed” and become willing to user the machinery of the state to interfere with freedom of choice — not that they are communists. Marxism is a political philosophy espousing class struggle as a result of an "unfair" advantage that, essentially, the 'rich' have over labor. This is precisely what Webb, et al, are positing.
Many Democrats see nothing wrong with that perspective, but object to seeing it classified as "Marxism". Well, that's what it is. Don't tell me you want to redistribute money from the plutocrats to the working man out of your own personal estimation of 'fairness', then tell me that bears no relation to Marxism. You bought it. Own it.
stretch and charlie r. have them in the room right now and are indoctrinating them into good little well behaved socialists.
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