Posted on 04/17/2023 6:02:00 PM PDT by DoodleBob
...The Heritage Foundation — a conservative think tank known for its pro-business allegiances — released a report Tuesday written by Alexander Salter, an economist at Texas Tech University, flirting with whether the US government should protect workers from free markets.
Conservatives have long argued that the government should not tax, regulate, or subsidize industry because consumers are better off when companies are forced to compete for their dollars. However, the consequences of globalization for American manufacturing have caused many conservatives to reconsider the need for government intervention. Heritage, once the center of free-market conservatism, is now at this very crossroads.
...
Where markets generate wealth but harm families, communities, and the nation, "Combating monopolies, redistributing income, and even guiding production in essential industries are all valid public policy options," the report said.
...
Donald Trump took the White House in 2016 railing against the consequences of free-market policies.
"Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very wealthy. But it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache," he said in a 2016 campaign speech.
...
The Reaganite fusion of free markets, social traditionalism, and anti-communism "is fundamentally dead," Geoff Kabaservice, vice president of political studies at the market-oriented think tank Niskanen Center, told Insider. "Ronald Reagan in 2023 might have seen his philosophy as pointing in different directions as the needs of the country are different now," he said.
...
Heritage's president, Kevin Roberts, took over in 2021 and has aligned the think tank much more with the New Right, which is home to figures like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who wield state power in the name of culture war... causing a lot of turnover in the organization.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
That’s not a change, it’s blatant common sense. It’s not a labor free market if the companies can just use legalized slavery in another nation.
Free markets WITHIN a nation? Absolutely. But unless nations have unified laws about labor and costs and business practices and environmental regulations - NO. It’s NEVER a “free” market in that sense. Unless you’re the mega corp.
Just a reminder to all. “Business Insider” is a left-wing website.
Business Insider 🤣🤣🤣. Nothing about business. Everything leftist.
Having open borders makes it impossible to protect the worker, because you have an eternal supply of replacement workers. Corporations can take in the unlimited number of workers and build them apartments to live in and then pay them $10/day.
That was what Hillary was going to sign under the Trade Pacific Pact. It was an agreement to commoditize human labour worldwide by offshoring jobs within the country.
And DeSantis hahahahah. Headline is hilarious
Conservative intellectuals, commentators, and politicians are rethinking the relationship between free enterprise and the common good. While critiques of the market have a long history in traditionalist circles, most American conservatives have held for several decades that protecting markets from government was essential for human flourishing. But that consensus is quickly changing as many elements of classical liberalism are now being challenged. The question is not whether to jettison free enterprise in favor of the common good, but rather how to orient free enterprise in support of the common good.(emphasis added) This requires properly understanding the common good and how free enterprise affects it. Conservatives must learn to treat hard-nosed economics and humane political economy as complements, not substitutes.
This country only exists for its citizens—not the citizens of any other country.
Businesses are not citizens.
Right - that’s still a leftist bent. “Common good” is socialism.
Protectionism is an entirely different beast.
No he didn't. But he did rail against unfair trade practices of foreign competitors. That's different.
In economic theory, a free market depends upon three things: 1. No monopolies or monopsynies: 2. No information assymetries; and 3. No externalities [undue influences affecting free market pariticipation, e.g government favors or subsidies or treaties that unbalance the competitive environment].
Megagopolies exploiting cheap labor in one country to undermine the productivity in another country, while accring the unfair profits to itself, is not a free market practice.
As has been pointed out, a genuine free trade agreement is less than one page long. Thousand-page “Partnerships” filled with kickbacks and exceptions for the favored have nothing whatsoever to do with free trade.
Having open borders makes it impossible to protect the worker, because you have an eternal supply of replacement workers. Corporations can take in the unlimited number of workers and build them apartments to live in and then pay them $10/day.
That was what Hillary was going to sign under the Trade Pacific Pact. It was an agreement to commoditize human labour worldwide by offshoring jobs within the country.
*********
True statement on the global labor supply and corporations.
Those same commercial operations hire management from a global supply of corporate managers.(Foreigners)
They just aren’t as picky about the bottom line and compensation with this group , hence the bloat and unproductive fat that is an albatross throughout corporate global America.
“Labor” is typical whine of anti-freemarket forces. There is some truth to it, but the primary thing driving business out of America is taxes not labor.
President Trump single-handedly destroyed the nonsense of so-called “free trade” by pointing out the difference of that with “fair trade” ... prior to Trump, perhaps only a few conservative academics had even heard of the term “fair trade”
and not only did Trump trumpet fair trade, he made it a bedrock policy and implemented that policy in a wholesale fashion ... no BS world court lawsuits either: Trump just declared that all tariffs were for national security purposes ... period ...
“Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very wealthy.”
That’s the Trump quote, the key being the “donate to politicians” part.
In a free market there would not be a need to “donate to politicians”.
Oh good God.
Always the wrong tac is taken.
When things are screwed up as indicated, the solution is not to play along, but dismantle the ponzi-scheme regulations that got us there in the first place.
To wit, minimum wage is anti-capitalism. It is anti-freedom and is a price control. Other regulations such as fewer hours to work, automatic enrollment in medical insurance, etc. these are all things that really have no natural right to exist.
THOSE are what corrupt the system.
You bemoan off-shore work migration? Get rid of the Union-based “labor” regulations. More money for less work (communist principle). That is anti-freedom and anti-free market.
BTTT
And, they don't.
Perhaps the idea of large international mega-corps is a bad one.
Of course the fact is any thing "Big" is not a friend of liberty. Big government, big energy, big religion, big publishing, big beer, big chicken, big drug..... Anything big could not give a hoot and a holler about you as a consumer because they are big enough to squash you.
Conservatism is being redefined from “laissez-faire capitalism” to “populism.” From looking out for Wall Street, to looking out for Main Street. Those are good changes.
Thanks for pointing this out.
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