Decision ‘08

James Webb, Socialist

That’s an outrage, you say…prove it! It ain’t me, babe, sayin’ it, to paraphrase one Bobby Zimmerman, but rather the always enlightening billmon (the proprietor of I Hate Israel - er, sorry, Whisky Bar):

Webb’s now the newly elected Senator from my native state (a stronghold of the Confederacy and the national “right-to-work” movement) who’s lined up shoulder to shoulder with Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi and is writing op eds for the Wall Street Journal explicitly calling for what the Republican chattering classes sneeringly condemn as “class warfare”…

…That’s beautiful stuff. Paul Wellstone could have written it. So could Bernie Sanders, although Bernie actually might find it a little too radical for his tastes. But the last person — well, almost the last person — on earth I would expect to emerge as a tribune of good old-fashioned New Deal populism (or, dare I say it, democratic socialism) is fightin’ Jim Webb, Ronald Reagan’s favorite Marine.

This is from a post praising Webb’s economic stance, mind you.

Actually, I did recognize quite early on that Webb had socialist ‘tendencies’, a full month before the elections, and I said so:

I’ve noted before Webb’s solid progressive (read: populist or socialist, pick your poison) credentials on economic matters, causing one commenter to note with exasperation:

Can we all agree that we’re OK with the free market system? Can we all agree that most of us - regardless of party affiliation - aren’t itching to pack up and move to a state farm? Can we dispense with the strawmen?

Well, when you’ve got a candidate for the U.S. Senate taking his economic cues from Marx and Engels…no, we can’t agree on that at all…

…and even earlier, here:

Uh, oh…’fair trade’, ‘internationalization’, and not the two Americas of John Edwards, but three? No, no, no, this won’t do at all…this quasi-socialist warmed-over Perot-type progressivism is not the prescription for Virginia or America.

One of the biggest problems I have with the modern Democratic Party is its reflexive hostility towards capitalism. Class warfare is an old populist trick, and it might play well for those with resentment towards the more fortunate, but I happen to think most American don’t resent the rich so much as they aspire to join them…

It’s not a crime to be a socialist, of course…but let’s be clear about what ‘fair’ trade is: it’s populism, it’s protectionism, it’s socialism, it’s class warfare (interesting, isn’t it, that billmon chooses this to nod at with approval), it’s a lot of things, but capitalism it most assuredly is not…

Free trade made this country great, economically, and democracy, politically. The two go hand in hand…Republicans must not cede ground on THIS issue in a move to the center, for it’s a defining one…

15 Responses to “James Webb, Socialist”

1 RiverRat Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 10:10 am
Actually, the US was essentially capitalist until the early 1930s when populists/socialists pushed it to what it is today; essentially an economically fascist regime. Italian economic fascism (aka corporatism) being the early model.

Do a little googling on “economic fascism” and you’ll see what I’m saying, but don’t confuse it with late 30s and 40s Newspeak co-option of the term “fascism” to describe racial supremacy movements such as evolved in Germany and Japan.
2 Mark Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Well, we are, without a doubt, not a purely capitalistic country…we are, instead, an example of the modern welfare state, with socialistic tendencies visable throughout society.

Nevertheless, it’s a matter of emphasis…though no modern democracies are purely capitalistic or purely socialistic, in old Europe the pendulum swings far more to the socialist side…
3 Mark Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 10:43 am
And lest I be misunderstood - I, too, think such things as CEO pay are way, way out of hand…but the proper remedy is shareholder activism and not government intervention…
4 mikebdot Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 10:56 am
“Essentially capitalist” until the early 30s? What? Check this out:

“There are two sides to history of tariffs in the Economic history of the United States. In the first place, it was the single most important source of federal revenue from the 1790s to the eve of World War I, when it was finally surpassed by income taxes.”

Yeah, damn near a 100% free market prior to those days. Gee golly.

I say Mark’s last sentence is hogwash (no offense, I just feel very strongly about this). I think ingenuity made the country great. The free market does indeed spur ingenuity, but fair trade will not stop ingenuity. No, all it does it raise prices. Big deal. The ingenuity will still happen. Customers might suffer in the short term, but I fail to see how it prevents ingenuity. I say the same for political happenings as well. Democracy is the not the engine. Ingenuity is.

If the minimum wage lowers wages all around, would a maximum wage raise wages all around? Hmmm…
5 Mark Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 11:04 am
Capitalism is the engine that spurs ingenuity in the economic field, Mike…capital seeks its most productive use, and the highest return on capital goes to the innovator.

As for the minimum wage - it doesn’t lower wages all around, it increases unemployment…
6 Evan Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 11:26 am
A maximum wage?

Talk about killing ingenuity. If there is a ceiling on the prosperity that can be attained or the opportunities that can be explored, where is the incentive to make better products? Somehow I get the feeling the answer is ultimately going to be “for the good of humanity”.
7 doug Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
So my question to you Evan is–Will I get more ingenuity from Bill Gates or from Evan if I have a million dollars to spend? I’d like to see the correlation between the number of patents (as a measure of ingenuity) a person has and networth. The r-squared will probably suck and the slope of the line is probably “0″. Why do MBAs make more than engineers, why to doctors make more than lawyers, why do teachers make less than garbage people.
8 Mark Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
And my question to you is where do you think Bill Gates’ wealth came from? Did you or the garbage man or the teacher come up with DOS and Windows?…Innovation, my friend…even if you argue that Windows was a Mac knockoff, he’d already made his name with DOS…
9 Evan Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
I’m not claiming there is any correlation to the number of patents one has and their corresponding net worth. I suppose it’s possible to have a thousand patents and remain in the lowest tax bracket. My point was that someone like Bill Gates is the motivation for innovation, because the drive and possibility for success and wealth like his is the motive behind successful ingenuity.

Of course, in this system, there are winners and losers, success stories and failures, and the left generally can’t live with the idea that some people are more successful and/or smarter than others. Consequently, they strive to put limits on what the successful/smart people can achieve so as to artifically even the economic landscape and make everybody a “winner”.

I should say I’m not talking about creating an aristocracy, but the point is, in places where the success of Bill Gates is possible, innovation will thrive.
10 Dave Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
One of the ways the Democrats won this year was by moderating on social issues and letting Jim Webb Democrats back into the fold. The Dems are now a party based on two things. The first is Marx-style economics. The second is a nationalism and protectionism that makes Pat Buchanan proud. The Dems have pretty much given up on the social issues, and as a result, we now have Dems who think women shouldn’t be in combat (Webb), pro-life Dems (Casey), and so forth.

The thing is, this has basically given the Dems a majority. And the GOP must respond in kind. The GOP must become the party for everyone who thinks Marx is an idiot, and that Milton Friedman should be canonized. The GOP must be the party for those who believe in free trade and leading the world, not recoiling from it. The thing is, there are a heckuva lot of people like that who don’t agree with conservatives on abortion, gay marriage, stem cells, and so forth. The GOP’s best bet is to one-up the Democrats by basically nixing the hardcore social platform. It has to be okay to be socially libertarian and Republican again. There can’t be this stigma against pro-choice Republicans or pro-gay rights Republicans if the GOP wants to win back a majority. Just as Democrats made major inroads into Missouri, Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana by jettisoning social liberalism, the GOP will make a comeback in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and California, as well as lots of other places, if it opens the tent to South Park types who are internationalist, free market, and who like their vices.

I think 2006 was a turning point. I think the days of social wedge issues are coming to a close. The GWOT has sort of initiated a slow replacement of the old culture war issues with foreign policy issues. The culture war was really a relic of the social change of the ’60s, and it only lives on today because the Boomers are the ones setting the agenda. But the young people don’t care about this stuff. It’ll take a few more election cycles, but let’s see if this pans out.
11 mikebdot Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
How would “fair trade” mechanisms to keep jobs here (which is the popular rationale at the moment) deter people like Bill Gates from being successful? All they are going to do is make him make slightly less money (on paper at that). I would honestly like to know what it is about “fair trade” that prevents innovation/ingenuity/”what makes america great”. My contention is that saying “free trade made this country great” is an empty platitude. One in which I’m not sure how one would support with any data as all the data would be based on the premise that the system made the greatness as opposed to great people making it (which to me is the more likely possibility). What “fair trade” arguments are you against? Who here does not think Ross Perot was correct about NAFTA?

Am I crazy in thinking that I seem to recall somewhere in the Wealth of Nations where Adam Smith himself discusses the occasional need for protectionism? I need to pick that up from the library again but I’m almost positive that is buried in there somewhere…
12 Mark Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Ross Perot correct about NAFTA? Is that a joke? What ‘fair trade’ arguments am I against? Try all of them…

Capital seeks its most profitable employment…protectionism does nothing more than scare capital away. And when capital gets scared away, jobs follow. You think we’re losing a lot of jobs to China and India now? Throw up a lot of trade barriers and watch the flood…
13 Dmac Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
“Am I crazy in thinking that I seem to recall somewhere in the Wealth of Nations where Adam Smith himself discusses…”

You’d be far better served by reading up on the Smoot - Hawley tariff act; that should be the final word on the myth of protectionistic trade policies.
14 Andy Vance Says:
November 17th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Free trade for thee, but not for me.
15 mikebdot Says:
November 17th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Mark: No joke. Whirlpool will be losing nearly all manufacturing to Mexico by 2020. They’re almost half way there now. The only manufacturing companies that will not move are those that make luxury items because the rich people can afford the extra money to pay the workers a few extra dollars per hour. All commodity type items (like top mount refrigerators produced here in Evansville) will be moved to Mexico. It’s just how it’s going to be. What the heck are people going to do? This shift to a service economy is going to turn out to be an empty shell when our trade deficit skyrockets in the next 10-20 years. It’s not going to be fun if we continue on this path. I honestly hope I’m wrong but fear that I am not. Perhaps you can relate?