That 70s Show
It’s fashionable, and I believe largely correct, to assert that we need to apply conservatism to the problems of our time and not 1978. But it is incredible how some of our economic debates are bringing us right back there.
As I’ve indicated in a prior post, the energy debates of this presidential election were eerily similar to those of the late 1970s, and Reagan’s position at that time is startlingly contemporary. We basically rehashed the Carter-Reagan energy policy debate in the 2008 presidential campaign, only without anybody playing Reagan.
The current debate about auto bailouts obviously echoes the debate about the original Chrysler bailout in1979. This is creating the need to go all the way back to the basic arguments about why free markets, though sometimes painful, are the best means of increasing material well-being. Luckily, we have writers like Megan McArdle and Will Wilkinson to help. All hail the libertarians.
Oh, the same libertarians who said the financial markets were self-regulating? The ones who think that if you leave those markets alone, we will inevitably march to increased abundance?
Yeah. No thanks.
— Freddie · Nov 15, 04:26 AM · #
Yay! Freddie knocked down the big, bad strawman that was threatening our way of life. He’s our hero!
(I’d make some serious comments about just what is self-regulating and what isn’t, but it appears they might be inappropriate in this setting.)
— The Reticulator · Nov 15, 05:39 AM · #
I was going to ri-post something like, “Wah! Markets sometimes go down, wah!”, but then I read Jim’s previous post on why bad bankers should be bailed out. I have little interest in that kind of libertarianism as well.
— CTD · Nov 15, 09:44 AM · #
Uh, Reticulator, are you really saying that no libertarians claimed that markets are self-regulating? Really?
(I’d make some serious comments about why you’re full of it but if I can just assert that I’m capable of doing so in a parenthetical down here it saves me the trouble. I’m so clever!)
— Freddie · Nov 15, 08:54 PM · #
Freddie:
Not to play word games, but what non-marginal libertarians claimed that markets are literally “self-regulating”, as in “adjusting, ruling, or governing itself without outside interference; operating or functioning without externally imposed controls or regulations”? Not, to my knowledge, the two writers to whom I pointed.
Most libertarians believe in less regulation of markets as a general rule than most, say, members of the Democratic Party, but that’s hardly the same thing. Further, I think it’s fair to say that the Recent Unpleasantness has led numerous libertarians to rethink some views on financial regulation (Alan Greenspan being the obvious example), but that’s also not close to the same thing.
If your point could be more accurately stated as “Oh those same libertarians who believe that markets should have less regulation than the Democratic Party wants”, then I say, “yeah, those guys”.
— Jim Manzi · Nov 15, 10:50 PM · #
I’m not convinced. It seems to me that the reason conservatives should move away from the policy prescriptions they offered in the late 1970’s is that the status quo, not to mention the problems that people are most concerned about, are very different.
There is a serious substantive difference between advocating income tax cuts when the top rate is over 70% and advocating cuts when the top marginal rate is 36%. Surely we all agree that it is possible for taxes to be too high, and it is also possible for them to be too low. Why then wouldn’t the current level of taxation be relevant to questions of whether more or less taxation is appropriate? Doesn’t the same point apply to the regulation/deregulation debate? Isn’t it relevant to our debates about energy that oil reserves have shrunk significantly since 1979, that world oil consumption is much greater, and that the threat of climate change is much more immediate? The world has changed quite a bit since 1979. Shouldn’t conservatives change with it?
— Zeke · Nov 17, 05:11 AM · #
Wookie scream: GRDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
— Chewbacca · Nov 27, 06:27 PM · #