What a Ron Paul Victory Would Mean
He hasn’t won yet, of course, and if he does we won’t get a terribly accurate picture from his supporters of why they gravitated toward him. But in my own wildly speculative view:
- Contra David Frum, Ron Paul is not the candidate of “indifference” to the economic situation. Indeed, I strongly suspect that the main substantive reason why Paul is getting more traction this time than last time around is precisely the economic crisis, and popular fury about it. Paul’s policy prescriptions are, in my view and in Frum’s (and in Andrew Sullivan’s, for that matter), insanely wrong – certain to badly exacerbate our plight, not to ameliorate it. They are reactionary, anti-modern, rooted in ignorance not knowledge. But they are an authentic response. Paul is not saying everything was fine in 2007. His is a deep and radical critique of business as usual. But a vote for him will not mean “I don’t care about the economic crisis.” It’ll mean, “I am convinced that Washington has no idea how to resolve the economic crisis, and, as a consequence, I am open to extremely radical and dangerous alternatives to the status quo.”
- I also don’t think Paul is getting much support because of his radical opposition to the foreign policy consensus. But I agree with Daniel Larison that if Paul wins, the fact that he will have won in spite of flouting that consensus is significant. Andrew Sullivan says his priority is “remaking” the GOP on foreign policy by opening up debate. Paul himself cannot make that debate happen – because he’s a rigid ideologue and his opponents are mostly behaving like thugs and hysterics. A debate of that sort isn’t really a debate at all. But if Paul wins Iowa, and does well in New Hampshire, he’ll have established that, in a post-9-11 world, there is room not to toe the line on foreign policy questions, room for someone with pragmatic views more like Dick Lugar’s (or Mitch Daniels’s) to run and not do what Romney and Huntsman have been doing. To a much lesser extent, I think the same thing can be said of civil liberties concerns.
- But it probably won’t mean anything at all. Mike Huckabee won in 2008. I haven’t noticed that the GOP field this year has been tripping over itself to win Huckabee’s support. Pat Buchanan nearly tied Bob Dole in 1996, but after that the party moved away from him, not towards him, on basically all his issues. Pat Robertson’s constituency has only gotten more important since 1988, but he himself probably reached the peak of his influence that year, and his constituency has remained important in part because it has proven to be domesticable – they have not demanded a radical change in much of anything in exchange for their votes. If Paul’s voters turn out to be similarly domesticable, one can debate how important they will turn out to have been. If not, I find it doubtful that the GOP will consider changing much to win them over.
I don’t think people are asking themselves /what does Ron Paul believe/.
I’ve been listening to this town hall speeches, and here’s some things that stood out. When asked about other candidates’s positions closing in on him, he agrees that their ideas of reform might have worked a few years back, but today it will require a radical change to save the system, and maybe it’s too late for even that.
More likely it seems that he believes we’re just doomed anyways. Everything he says and his propositions make more sense in this light. It’s all going to come crashing down, and who is going to be there to rebuild it? Hopefully, the people who have followed his ideas and teachings and writings. Every day he’s in the spotlight is an another opportunity to give voice to his ideas.
You hear about “oh he’s setting the stage for his son, or a third party run”, but no, he’s like the Mayan Calender predicting the end times. If Paul’s right, then none of these little battles for the heart of the party are going to matter, and if he’s wrong then all the problems he talks about will just solve themselves on their own, and his constituents will disappear.
— Patrick L · Dec 21, 09:55 AM · #
If moderates and indies are supporting Paul, not because he can win, but because he can reshape the GOP, I sure wish they would support Huntsman for the same reason. His service in China showed a willingness to put aside party and politics to serve the country. His respect for science and common sense on fiscal matters are essential if our country wishes to move forward. But no one is interested in the Huntsman model, even though it is the very thing we need the most. Only extremism like Paul’s cuts across the din. Depressing.
— htownmark · Dec 21, 10:16 AM · #
You say of Austrian School Economics: “They are reactionary, anti-modern, rooted in ignorance not knowledge.”
Do you want to stick with that?
— Cato · Dec 21, 01:12 PM · #
Show me an Austrian that can explain why we don’t currently have double digit inflation…
— Console · Dec 21, 01:30 PM · #
“Show me an Austrian that can explain why we don’t currently have double digit inflation…”
We’re headed for inflation, when banks start lending and government increases spending. It takes a while for inflation to kick in — the next decade will see slow growth and high interest rates. The money is just sitting in the banks right now, but when it circulates inflation will come about, and the Fed will be forced to raise interest rates, thus, slowing the growth that tried to take off. Unless the Fed has a magic valve to release just enough and control the flow of millions of consumers and investors. I’m betting on inflation, though.
— mfarmer · Dec 21, 02:28 PM · #
It’s like the republican body politic has given itself a brain injury (by bathing their cerebellums in too much rage and paranoia?) and is now operating on it’s lizard brain alone. It seems incapable of the most basic planning or goal setting. It can’t even identify self-interest. All it can do is lay there and respond to outside stimuli. Candidates float past and for a moment their odor or electrical charge causes the electorate’s limb to twitch. Then that the tide jostles another candidate forward, eliciting another twitch.
— cw · Dec 21, 03:01 PM · #
“I’m betting on inflation, though.”
Good. There are macro-economic benefits to both inflation and higher interest rates.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 21, 03:49 PM · #
There are macro-economic benefits to both inflation
One of those benefits is making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
— The Reticulator · Dec 21, 05:12 PM · #
It can’t even identify self-interest.
That’s one of the nicest things anybody has ever said about Republicans or any other political party. I don’t think they’re quite as virtuous as you make them out to be, though.
— The Reticulator · Dec 21, 05:44 PM · #
“One of those benefits is making the rich richer and the poor poorer.”
Hah! Inflation means you can pay off yesterday’s debts with money that’s worth less tomorrow. Hard to see how that makes the poor poorer. And higher interest rates allow you to get a decent return on savings, which could suck some money away from our bloated financial markets. Not sure how that’d make the rich richer.
Frankly, it’s the absolute insistance from the wealthy that inflation and interest rates be keep as low as possible, no matter what, that is at the heart of much of our current economic morass.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 21, 07:07 PM · #
“I don’t think they’re quite as virtuous as you make them out to be, though.”
The brain dead are usually pretty virtuous.
— cw · Dec 21, 07:17 PM · #
Mike, I think what you’re saying is sorta kinda right — inflation helps middle-class types carrying a lot of fixed debt which is why we’d like some right now — but wrong in general (and in particular in societies where households don’t carry obscene debt burdens) because the working poor’s wages will tend to lag inflation a little and the rich make more money from capital gains. Payday loans and other short-term debt don’t give a crap about inflation! Mind you I don’t think it’s a huge effect except for folks at the minimum wage.
That said one of many great irritations in these threads is that the libertarians out there tend to elide, in speaking about it, the distinction between hyperinflation and inflation, perhaps in part from a too-strong dislike of the latter. And many — not all — of those Austrian devotees I meet seem to think any day now we’re headed for full Weimar, wheelbarrows of cash, that crap (in which event Reticulator is obviously right and you wrong: hyperinflation sucks unless you have tons o’ shit and can get more quickly). So it’s probably worth clarifying — not that it should be for normal rational adults but when you have the name “Ron Paul,” and words about “Austrians,” I’d argue you’re sort of making a gentleman’s agreement to accommodate the fruitcakes —- that you’re talking about “inflation like we had in the ’90’s” not “inflation like they have in Zimbabwe” or even “inflation like they had in the ’70’s.”
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 21, 07:52 PM · #
The last sentence of your comment is also a bit spacy, Mike. Um, no, there was a housing bust, and this shadow banking system, and a lot of wacky financial instruments…
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 21, 07:56 PM · #
Hah! Inflation means you can pay off yesterday’s debts with money that’s worth less tomorrow. Hard to see how that makes the poor poorer. And higher interest rates allow you to get a decent return on savings, which could suck some money away from our bloated financial markets. Not sure how that’d make the rich richer.
If one looked no further than that, I suppose you would have a point. After all, it has historically been groups like those farmers of the late 19th century who were losing social and economic status who were asking for more inflation. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have made their situation worse, though.
David Hackett Fisher shows how over the centuries, times of high inflation have been times of increasing inequality of wealth. I don’t know if he claims to know exactly how it happens with enough precision to model it, or even that it’s a matter of cause and effect.
Frankly, it’s the absolute insistance from the wealthy that inflation and interest rates be keep as low as possible, no matter what, that is at the heart of much of our current economic morass.
I presume that by “economic morass” you are referring to the fact that there is no more money to maintain the ruling/regulatory class in the style to which it has become accustomed. So you’d like the government to print more to keep you and your ilk in gravy, never mind what it does to the working class and middle class.
— The Reticulator · Dec 21, 10:03 PM · #
Well, that certainly explains the financial crisis of 2008. However, it is now 2011, and Mike, though a monster, is correct that the current morass – i.e., the reason we have not recovered from the crisis in 2008 yet – is the result primarily of the incredible, baseless, elite-driven obsession with keeping inflation as low as possible.
— Chet · Dec 21, 11:11 PM · #
it’s the absolute insistance from the wealthy that inflation and interest rates low
Hah. I should have read this more carefully so I would have known better than to take it as seriously as I did. I hate when I miss out on a chance to taunt and ridicule.
— The Reticulator · Dec 21, 11:16 PM · #
the incredible, baseless, elite-driven obsession with keeping inflation as low as possible
Yeah, we need more of what Greece is doing. There’s a country that knows how to throw inflationary caution to the winds and stimulate its economy out of the doldrums.
But at least Chet, even though he said Mike is correct, didn’t go so far as to actually believe Mike was correct in saying that the wealthy are ruining us by their insistence on keeping inflation and interest rates as low as possible.
— The Reticulator · Dec 22, 09:10 AM · #
Greece is doing austerity (they have to, they’re on the Euro.) The UK is doing austerity. Most of Europe, in fact, is doing austerity.
Do you get any sense that “austerity” is working? Anywhere?
Don’t you ever get tired of being completely wrong?
— Chet · Dec 22, 09:48 AM · #
Greece is doing austerity (they have to, they’re on the Euro.) The UK is doing austerity. Most of Europe, in fact, is doing austerity.
Greece promises the EU and IMF that it’s doing austerity. That doesn’t mean it’s doing any of what it promises to do. That’s why there is talk of giving the EU a bigger club with which to beat recalcitrant members into submission.
— The Reticulator · Dec 22, 11:27 AM · #
So where is austerity working, Reticulator? Answer the question, troll.
— Chet · Dec 23, 07:43 PM · #
So where is austerity working, Reticulator? Answer the question, troll
Oh, our Lordship is making demands? I guess I had better bow and obey.
I don’t know anywhere that IMF-style austerity has worked, because AFAIK in practice it always means continuing to grow the government and spend in accordance with Chet’s wishes, while taxing the people in order to feed the ruling class and their buddies, the big financiers.
— The Reticulator · Dec 23, 11:14 PM · #
So, austerity has never, to your knowledge, worked. But you’re convinced that it will.
Um, why, exactly?
— Chet · Dec 24, 01:36 PM · #
So, austerity has never, to your knowledge, worked. But you’re convinced that it will.
You ought to try reading what I wrote.
Y’know, there was a leftwing chet who used to comment here who sometimes wrote intelligent things, if you can believe that is possible for a leftwinger. How do you distinguish yourself from that person? Or is this a case of identity theft?
— The Reticulator · Dec 24, 04:49 PM · #
Well, I did. And what you wrote was “I don’t know anywhere that IMF-style austerity has worked”.
Are you now walking back from those comments? In the space of one blog post? That has to be a new record in TAS mendacity, even for you.
But, look, clearly you think you’re some kind of smart guy. So answer some dumb questions. Given that the government’s deficit is the private sector surplus, why should we ever expect “austerity” – IMF-style or for that matter, the unattainable ideal of “Austerity!” that you clearly have in mind – to work?
— Chet · Dec 24, 07:30 PM · #
Great post, I enjoyed ready reading it, Keep posting good stuff like this. thank u!
— resume help · Dec 27, 06:20 AM · #
Interesting post. Thanks.
— essay writing help · Dec 29, 07:00 AM · #