In the old days a “liberal” was someone who believed in freedom, including free markets and minimal government. Milton Friedman defended “liberal” in its original sense in his article “Liberalism, Old Style.”
At some point the left hijacked the word, at least in the United States. (I understand that in much of the rest of the world “liberal” still retains more of its original meaning.)
Maybe there’s some defensible justification for hijacking a word, but most of the time it seems like a dishonest and cowardly way to win an argument by muddying up the debate.
Dan Klein and Kevin Frei are trying to reclaim the word “liberal” from the pirates of the left. As part of their effort, they have proclaimed June 16th to be “Liberalism Day.”
I believe their cause is just, but I am not sure it is efficient. Time and effort are scarce, so we must pick our battles.
On the other hand, the meaning of “libertarian” has narrowed over recent decades. It used to be that most libertarians believed in minimal government; increasingly more libertarians endorse anarchism. It used to be that most libertarians believed in national defense; increasingly more libertarians endorse total isolationism.
I do believe in some minimal night-watchman state, and I do believe that sometimes there is evil in the world that must be fought. So maybe I should start calling myself a “liberal” in the original sense, what Friedman called a “classical liberal”?
Category: Free Markets
Koch Industries Was Only Major Ethanol Producer to Oppose Ethanol Tax Credits
(p. A17) I have devoted most of my life to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives. It is those principles–the principles of a free society–that have shaped my life, my family, our company and America itself.
Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law and personal freedom are under attack by the nation’s own government. That’s why, if we want to restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight for those principles.
. . .
Far from trying to rig the system, I have spent decades opposing cronyism and all political favors, including mandates, subsidies and protective tariffs–even when we benefit from them. I believe that cronyism is nothing more than welfare for the rich and powerful, and should be abolished.
Koch Industries was the only major producer in the ethanol industry to argue for the demise of the ethanol tax credit in 2011. That government handout (which cost taxpayers billions) needlessly drove up food and fuel prices as well as other costs for consumers–many of whom were poor or otherwise disadvantaged. Now the mandate needs to go, so that consumers and the marketplace are the ones who decide the future of ethanol.
For the full commentary, see:
CHARLES G. KOCH. “OPINION; I’m Fighting to Restore a Free Society; Instead of welcoming free debate, collectivists engage in character assassination.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., April 3, 2014): A17.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary was updated April 2, 2014, and has the title “OPINION; Charles Koch: I’m Fighting to Restore a Free Society; Instead of welcoming free debate, collectivists engage in character assassination.” )
Koch’s philosophy of the free market is more fully elaborated in:
Koch, Charles G. The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World’s Largest Private Company. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007.
In the Gilded Age Moguls Cleaned Up Their Own Mess and the Economy Was Not Hurt
Source of book image: online version of the WSJ review quoted and cited below.
(p. A13) Takeover wars seem to have lost their sizzle. What happened to the battles of corporate goliaths? Where have they gone, those swaggering deal makers? “Harriman vs. Hill” is a corporate dust-up that takes us back to the beginning of the 20th century, when tycoons who traveled by private rail merrily raided each other’s empires while the world around them cringed.
. . .
Mr. Haeg conveys a vivid picture of the Gilded Age in splendor and in turmoil. Champagne still flowed in Peacock Alley in the Waldorf-Astoria, but fistfights erupted on the floor of the exchange, and a young trader named Bernard Baruch skirted disaster with the help of an inside tip, then perfectly legal. There were scant rules governing stock trading, the author reminds us–no taxes, either. “If you won in the market, you kept it all.”
In that era, moguls were left to clean up their own mess. . . .
. . .
Though hardly a cheerleader, Mr. Haeg is admiring of his cast, nostalgic for the laissez-faire world they inhabited. Observing that the economy wasn’t upset by the stock market’s mayhem, he concludes that, “in a perverse way, the market had worked.”
For the full review, see:
ROGER LOWENSTEIN. “BOOKSHELF; When Titans Tie the Knot; Businessmen of a century ago didn’t place ‘competition’ on a revered pedestal. Merger and monopoly were considered preferable.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Feb. 14, 2014): A13.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Feb. 13, 2014, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; Book Review: ‘Harriman vs. Hill,’ by Larry Haeg; Businessmen of a century ago didn’t place ‘competition’ on a revered pedestal. Merger and monopoly were considered preferable.”)
The book under review is:
Haeg, Larry. Harriman Vs. Hill: Wall Street’s Great Railroad War. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
As Venezuelan Economy Collapses, Socialists Urge Citizens to Hit the Beach and Party
“Antigovernment protesters blocking a street in San Cristóbal, in western Venezuela, decorated their barrier like a beach scene.” Source of caption and photo: online version of WILLIAM NEUMAN. “Slum Dwellers in Caracas Ask, What Protests?” The New York Times (Sat., March 1, 2014): A1 & A8.
(p. A6) CARACAS, Venezuela–President Nicolás Maduro declared an extended Carnival holiday season, betting that sun, sand and rum will help calm the worst civil unrest to sweep the oil-rich nation in more than a decade.
As some opposition leaders called to cancel the celebrations to mourn those who died in recent weeks during protests, Mr. Maduro’s ministers publicly encouraged Venezuelans to hit the beach for the pre-Lent festivities.
. . .
Among those officials most visible to the public these days has been Tourism Minister Andres Izarra, who has been hitting tourist hot spots with a campaign called “Carnival 2014–The Coolest Holiday.”
He said that officials were opening 180 tourist information centers for the long holiday weekend and increasing maintenance and trash pickup at beaches that are often covered with empty alcohol containers. Meanwhile, the transportation minister, Haiman El Troudi, said new bus routes would be added to get Venezuelans to the beach.
For the full story, see:
KEJAL VYAS and JUAN FORERO. “Venezuela Leader Fights Unrest With Fiesta; President Maduro Extends Carnival Celebration After Opposition Call For Mourning, More Protests.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., FEB. 28, 2014): A6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Feb. 27, 2014.)
“PARTY LINE: Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, reeling from weeks of protests, called for Carnival season to begin early, and his ministers urged Venezuelans to hit the beach. But the crumbling economy and food shortages created scenes such as the lines at a supermarket.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited above.
“Opposition demonstrators wearing Carnival masks take part in a women’s rally against Nicolás Maduro’s government in Caracas on Wednesday.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited above.
United States Drops Out of Top 10 in Economic Freedom
Source of table: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.
(p. A13) World economic freedom has reached record levels, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released Tuesday [Jan. 14, 2014] by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. But after seven straight years of decline, the U.S. has dropped out of the top 10 most economically free countries.
For 20 years, the index has measured a nation’s commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating 10 categories, including fiscal soundness, government size and property rights. These commitments have powerful effects: Countries achieving higher levels of economic freedom consistently and measurably outperform others in economic growth, long-term prosperity and social progress.
For the full commentary, see:
TERRY MILLER. “America’s Dwindling Economic Freedom; Regulation, taxes and debt knock the U.S. out of the world’s top 10.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Jan. 14, 2014): A13.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Jan. 13, 2014.)
For more on the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, visit:
http://www.heritage.org/index/
Carnegie’s Not-Fully-Grown-Infant-Industry Argument for Steel Tariffs
(p. 375) The steel industry was doubly dependent on state and national governments for the generous loans and subsidies that fueled railway expansion and rail purchases and the protective tariffs that enabled the manufacturers to keep their prices–and profits–higher than would have been possible had they been compelled to compete with European steelmakers. If, in the beginning, as Carnegie had argued, the tariff had been needed to nurture an infant steel industry, by the mid-1880s that infant had become a strapping, abrasive youth, who kept on growing. Why then, one might inconveniently ask, was there need for a protective tariff? Because, as Carnegie argued in the North American Review in July 1890, the steel industry was not yet fully grown and would have to be protected until it was.
On the issue of the tariff–as on few others–Pittsburgh’s workingmen were in agreement with Carnegie. They voted Republican in large numbers because the Republicans were the guardians of the protective tariff, and the tariff, they believed, protected their wage rates.
The argument linking the tariff and wages in the manufacturing sector was a compelling one in the industrial states, but nowhere else. As the Democrats took great delight in pointing out, high tariffs led to high prices for all consumers.
Source:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: italics in original.)
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)
Jay Gould Said Railroad Rates Should Be Set by “the Laws of Supply and Demand”
(p. 344) Jay Gould, asked in 1885 by a Senate investigating committee if he believed a “general national law” was needed to regulate railroad rates, responded that they were already regulated by “the laws of supply and demand, production, and consumption.”
Source:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)
Carnegie Donated to Pro-Steel-Tariff Republicans
(p. 331) Through good times and bad, protected tariffs on imported steel rails had kept the domestic steel business strong–and the steelmakers, a major force in Pennsylvania politics, had responded by doing all they could to reelect pro-tariff Republicans. Three weeks before the 1884 elections, Carnegie had written his partners in Pittsburgh that “Bethlehem, Penna. Steel Co., Cambria, and Lackawanna I & C [Iron & Coal] have each given $ 5,000 to the Republican National Committee and we have been asked to give the same amount which I think is only fair.”
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: bracketed words in original.)
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)
Ending U.S. Sugar Import Quotas Would Create 20,000 U.S. Jobs in Food Manufacturing
“Erin Calvo-Bacci, the owner of a candy shop, the Chocolate Truffle, in Reading, Mass., lamented the cost of American sugar.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.
(p. A14) READING, Mass. — Inside the Chocolate Truffle candy shop in this Boston suburb are chocolate pizzas, chocolate buffalo wings, even a chocolate wingtip shoe. The owner, Erin Calvo-Bacci, would like to expand her business close to home, but is instead thinking of moving her operations to Canada, where the sugar essential for her products costs far less.
“We are committed to offering locally made affordable products, but the cost of sugar is driving manufacturers out of the country,” Ms. Calvo-Bacci said, echoing other American candy producers, like the maker of Dum Dum lollipops, that are moving jobs to Mexico to take advantage of the lower sugar prices there.
Candy makers say the culprit is the federal sugar program, a combination of import restrictions, production quotas and loan programs dating to the 1930s, all designed to keep the price of American sugar well above that of the world market. Now the program is at the center of an intensifying battle as the House and Senate open formal negotiations this week on a long-delayed farm bill.
The price for one type of sugar, wholesale refined beet sugar, averaged 43.4 cents per pound at Midwest markets last year, the Agriculture Department reported, compared with 26.5 cents per pound for the world refined sugar price.
. . .
. . . sugar producers, bolstered by lawmakers from sugar-beet-producing states like Minnesota and sugarcane states like Florida, have spent an estimated $20 million since 2011 to block efforts to change the program. . . . Small candy makers, bakers and others who have lobbied Congress for lower prices say that taking on the sugar lobby is like taking on Goliath.
“We were no match for the sugar people,” said Judy Hilliard McCarthy, an owner of Hilliard’s House of Candy, a candy maker just outside Boston. Ms. McCarthy said she had made several trips to Washington to lobby on behalf of the industry.
Government and academic studies support claims by candy makers that the sugar program has had an impact on the industry. A widely cited 2006 study by the Commerce Department and a 2011 Iowa State University study found that the price supports had led to job losses among candy makers.
In particular, the Commerce Department study found that three candy-making jobs were lost for each job growing or processing sugar that was saved by higher prices. The Iowa State study found that eliminating price supports and quotas for sugar would create about 20,000 jobs for American food processors, bakeries and candy makers.
For the full story, see:
RON NIXON. “Candy Makers, Pinched by Inflated Sugar Prices in the U.S., Look Abroad.” The New York Times (Thurs., October 31, 2013): A14.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date October 30, 2013, and has the title “American Candy Makers, Pinched by Inflated Sugar Prices, Look Abroad.”)
The latest version of the John Beghin Iowa State report, mentioned above, is:
Beghin, John C., and Amani Elobeid. “The Impact of the U.S. Sugar Program Redux.” Working Paper No. 13010. Iowa State University, Department of Economics, Staff General Research Papers, May 2013.
“Sugar was poured to make a confection for Hilliard’s House of Candy, just outside Boston, whose owner has lobbied officials.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.
Fed-Mandated High Sugar Prices Drive Candy Jobs Abroad
Source of graph: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.
(p. A1) On Friday, [Oct. 18, 2013] the U.S. sugar contract in the futures market settled at 22.28 cents a pound, or 14% higher than the benchmark global price.
U.S. prices can’t fall much lower because of a federal government program that guarantees sugar processors a minimum price. The rest of the world also has a surfeit of sugar, but fewer price restrictions, and big growers like Brazil are expecting a record crop for the current season.
The squeeze explains why Atkinson Candy Co. has moved 80% of its peppermint-candy production to a factory in Guatemala that opened in 2010. That means it can sell bite-size Mint Twists to retailers for 10% to 20% less.
“It wasn’t like we did it for (p. A14) profit reasons. We did it for survival reasons,” said Eric Atkinson, president of the family-owned candy maker, based in Lufkin, Texas. “These are 60 jobs down there…that could be in the U.S.,” he added. “It’s a damn shame.”
Jelly Belly Candy Co. is finishing its second expansion of a factory in Thailand that was opened by the Fairfield, Calif., company in 2007. The sixth-generation family-owned firm sells about 20% of its jelly beans, made in flavors from buttered popcorn to very cherry, outside the U.S.
Sugar makes up about half of the ingredients and cost of a typical jelly bean, said Bob Simpson, Jelly Belly’s president and chief operating officer. Thailand is the world’s fourth-largest sugar producer and gives Jelly Belly access to cheaper sugar, labor and other raw materials than the candy maker has in the U.S.
“You can’t compete shipping finished U.S. goods” anymore, Mr. Simpson said. In the U.S., Jelly Belly has had to raise prices “several times” in the past 10 years due to high sugar prices.
. . .
Three candy-making jobs are lost for each sugar-growing and processing job saved by higher sugar prices, according to a Commerce Department report in 2006.
In a sign that candy makers are taking advantage of lower sugar prices elsewhere, the amount of sugar contained in imported products surged 33% from 2002 to 2012, according to the Agriculture Department.
For the full story, see:
Wexler, Alexandra. “Cheaper Sugar Sends Candy Makers Abroad.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Oct. 21, 2013): A1 & A14.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Oct. 20, 2013.)
“Jelly Belly, whose facility in Fairfield, Calif., is shown above, is expanding its factory in Thailand.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited above.
Margaret Thatcher Funeral: “Suddenly from the Crowd a Great Roar”
“A supporter of Margaret Thatcher holds a banner outside St. Clement Danes church in London.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.
(p. A15) The funeral of Margaret Thatcher was beautiful, moving, just right. It had dignity and spirit, and in that respect was just like her. It also contained a surprise that shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was a metaphor for where she stood in the pantheon of successful leaders of the 20th century.
. . .
At the end of the funeral they all marched down the aisle in great procession–the family, the queen, the military pallbearers carrying the casket bearing the Union Jack. The great doors flung open, the pallbearers marched forward, and suddenly from the crowd a great roar. We looked at each other. Demonstrators? No. Listen. They were cheering. They were calling out three great hurrahs as the pallbearers went down the steps. Then long cheers and applause. It was electric.
England came. The people came. Later we would learn they’d stood 30 deep on the sidewalk, that quiet crowds had massed on the Strand and Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill. A man had held up a sign: “But We Loved Her.”
. . . When they died, Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, and Margaret Thatcher were old and long past their height of power. Everyone was surprised when Reagan died that crowds engulfed the Capitol; people slept on sidewalks to view him in state. When John Paul died the Vatican was astonished to see millions converge. “Santo Subito.”
And now at the end some came for Thatcher, too.
What all three had in common: No one was with them but the people.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, rest in peace.
For the full commentary, see:
PEGGY NOONAN. “DECLARATIONS; Britain Remembers a Great Briton; Margaret Thatcher’s coffin stood over he crypts that hold the tombs of Nelson and Wellington. It mattered.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., April 20, 2013): A15.
(Note: the online version of the story was updated April 22, 2013 (I did not see any update in the part I quoted above), and has the title “DECLARATIONS; Noonan: Britain Remembers a Great Briton; Mrs. Thatcher is with Wellington and Nelson now.”)