At the top of the Republican Party we now have two politicians, Trump and Vance, who embrace government intervention for what they see as important goals for the nation — or at least for their election. Behind them is the big national-conservative movement, with lots of resources to push their agenda, which calls for government power to do good.
In this AIER article, economics professor Donald Boudreaux jousts with the NatCons over their intellectual and policy inconsistencies.
A slice:
Is the non-economic value of the jobs destroyed by protectionism less than is the non-economic value of the jobs preserved by protectionism? It must be so for the NatCon case to hold together. Yet I’ve never encountered a protectionist of any stripe who explains why the jobs preserved by protectionism have a higher non-material or ethical importance than do the jobs destroyed by protectionism.
The NatCons, when confronted by the arguments of classical liberals like Boudreaux, usually retreat behind such smokescreens as calling their opponents “market fundamentalists.”
The left-interventionists long ago stopped debating the pros and cons of their policies, and it’s truly depressing that the right-interventionist crowd is following their lead.