October 27, 2011
There is a caricature of political debate that the right has invented whereby conservatives claim to be supporters of free markets whereas progressives want government regulation. This was always utter nonsense, but it should be especially apparent that it is utter nonsense today.
Few mainstream conservatives supported letting the market put Wall Street out of business when the collapse of the speculative bubble in the housing market made most major banks insolvent in the fall of 2008. At the moment, Europe’s leaders are meeting nearly around the clock to devise a plan that will have the effect of saving the big European banks from their bad investments in sovereign debt.
There are almost no major figures in politics who are actually opposed to government regulation. In fact, it is not even clear what that means. Do they want to get rid of deposit insurance for banks, or patent and copyright protection? The real issue is whether the government is going to structure markets in ways that have the effect of pushing income upwards, which has been the situation for most of the last three decades or whether it will design policies that benefit the vast majority of the population. This is the 1 percent versus the 99 percent question.
It is hugely advantageous to conservatives, who want the government to advance the interests of the 1 percent, to have their position framed as a pro-market position. It is far more politically palatable to be seen supporting a free market than to be supporting policies that are intended to aid a small elite at the expense of the bulk of the population.
It is therefore understandable that conservatives would embrace the market versus intervention framing of the debate between conservatives and progressives. It is much harder to understand why someone who is left of center, like WAPO columnist E.J. Dionne would embrace the same framing.
[Dionne’s framing is a textbook example of loser liberalism.]
Comments