From an Angry Reader:
Hello Dr. Hanson,
While it’s hard to argue with “be happy day by day”, our current form of capitalism – which Hoover seems to endorse – makes that near impossible.
Over the last 30 years, Friedman’s nutty idea of maximizing shareholder value as the only responsibility a corporation has, followed by Jack Welch’s popularizing of that nutty idea (which he later regretted) killed the middle and working class.
And CEO’s are paid not Drucker’s 20x average wages but 335x. Hoover’s free market stance seems ok with all that.
We need a different form of capitalism for your column to make sense.
Best,
D Davidson
Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:
Dear Angry Reader D Davidson,
Thank you for your note. As I look around the word at the plight of the poor—Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Mexico, Russia—I do not see capitalism as the common denominator of poverty, but rather communism, socialism, statism, and crony capitalism of a sort. Globalization did untold damage to the red-state interior, in that it helped weaken the idea of a nation of common values and citizens and made the global market the final arbiter of social policy.
Are you a Trump voter, given that your letter seems to echo the concerns, for example, as voiced by Steven Bannon at the Vatican not long ago, who called for an enlightened form of capitalism and an end to transnational elite governance? I really do not care what CEOs or the rich make—most like the Google team, Facebook people, Warren Buffet, and Gates, Inc. are leftist billionaires—as long as the middle classes and poor have good jobs, fairly priced housing and the hope that life will be better for their children. That is no longer the case, largely because an elite has decided that overregulation, utopian environmentalism, and creeping statism is good for everyone else but themselves who have the means to navigate around the consequences of their own ideologies.
We need to promote cheap energy, manufacturing jobs, vocational education, and begin to honor professions like farming, mining, timber, and construction rather than relegate them to caricatures and ossified entertainment (e.g., Ax-men, ice truckers, tuna boaters, etc.) on cable reality TV.
I have found among the rich somewhat of a difference between those who ‘made it’ farming, ranching, building, manufacturing, etc. vs. those who made it even more so through speculation, banking and insurance. The former often seems more real in some sense. As you can see I have a prejudice against the metrosexual Pajama Boy elite who profess one way and live quite another, although I confess it is often stereotyped and unfair.
Sincerely,
V Hanson
Discussion (8)
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Dear VDH, I find your characterizations of capitalism a little confusing. My general impression is that you see capitalism – the free exchange and development of ideas and goods - as a force for good: it provides meaningful jobs, lifts people out of poverty, develops life enhancing technologies etc. And apparently you seem to feel many of the restraints on free markets to be either ineffective, pernicious or self-serving. This is all well and good. Where my confusion lies in the relationship of capitalism and your distinction between what you call the “tragic” view of life and what you call the “therapeutic” view of life. Champions of modern capitalism often exalt the benefits of largely free markets as ultimately beneficial and self regulating. But even Adam Smith himself understood that a healthy free market economy could only function properly in a healthy culture. I think your often asserted belief in a tragic limited universe is at odds with the current capitalist universe where no limits whatsoever are presumed. Today modern capitalism is not restrained by a more modest tragic view of life but, by default, the bloated Therapeutic State. Today’s capitalism is largely in the service of a therapeutic world view which inevitably must end in what we see today – an unholy alliance of the State and the Corporation. I don’t believe the distinction between capitalism of the tragic universe and capitalism of the therapeutic universe to be merely academic or trivial. It seems to me the populist appeal of Donald Trump has been largely fueled by neither an embrace of capitalism nor a rejection of capitalism but a revulsion of the therapeutic world view. You yourself seem quite aware of the essential conflict of differing world views, though your views on capitalism I find a little muddled. Thank you for your time Chris Augusta
The empirical data for the creation of wealth is so overwhelming that I find it exacerbating that there is any doubt that capitalism, free enterprise, self responsibility-reliance is at the core of wealth creation. Go back to any era and you will find some invention that gave humans more wealth, and thus survival of more humans, and thus more inventions, etc. We've progressed from the invention of the incline plane and the wheel to silicon crystals that are modified to create computers that create wealth for humans, and thus the survival of more humans, etc. From the scientists of the West have come countless inventions that have enriched all, West and East. Today, the East wants to destroy the goose that lays golden eggs and it seems that we have an internal group that ants to do the same.
Dear Dr. Hanson I am writing to solicit your opinion on the latest media-frenzy concerning Donald Trump Jr. and his email interaction with Rob Goldstone and subsequent interaction with a Russian lawyer under the pretense of obtaining opposition reasearch on Hillary Clinton. I have agreed with much of what you have written on this supposed Russian scandal thus far. Namely, the left-dominated media crafting narrative out of innuendo and rumor. What questions does this email exchange raise for you regarding the possibility of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia? Are you sympathetic to the argument that says in order to stop what would have surely been a disasterous Clinton presidency any means of doing so are justified? I am a great admirer of your thought and look forward to hearing your elucidation of this matter. Thank you for all that you have done in espousing conservative principles and preserving the wisdom of the past for future generations, as well as for explaining the tragic view of life in a way that has helped me to find meaning in my own life. Sincerely, Joshua Byrd
There is a war on capitalism. No one defends it much. It is no wonder Bernie Sanders can be taken seriously. The left and the RINOs have given us crony capitalism, a byproduct of huge government. It needs to be exposed and vilified for what it is, socialism.
Such a provocative, yet quite evenhanded and fair response. Perhaps it's best not to be capsulized inside any category.
"We need to promote cheap energy, manufacturing jobs, vocational education, and begin to honor professions like farming, mining, timber, and construction rather than relegate them to caricatures and ossified entertainment (e.g., Ax-men, ice truckers, tuna boaters, etc.) on cable reality TV." First, there is only one kind of Capitalism, as defined by Ayn Rand: Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. And - from What is Capitalism? "When I say “capitalism,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church." What we need is Freedom and (Laissez-Faire) Capitalism, an upholding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, a Government protecting those rights (to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) which means the government getting out of e.g. schools, medicine, housing, welfare, corporate welfare (aka crony socialism), etc.
"good for everyone else but themselves who have the means to navigate around the consequences of their own ideologies." This is a miserably true statement and describes our plight as much as any. High taxes are a minor nuisance to the fantastically wealthy just as are all the government imposed plagues on the American middle class, leaching the life-substance to the very end that appears close by.
Why do the rich lean left? With their 'utopia' they would not have had the opportunity to be rich and influential.