The Path to a Humane Economy

The New Right should embrace truly free markets. Here's why.

In an article at his Regime Critic substack, Josiah Lippincott argues that “our economy is unhealthy,” which it certainly is. “Americans work way too much,” Lippincott observes. “Simply staying afloat in this economy as a middle-class household usually requires that both husband and wife work full-time. Americans notoriously have relatively few vacation days when compared to workers in other advanced economies.”

Lippincott argues from a quality-of-life perspective as opposed to a straightforwardly materialistic, Economic Man point of view focused on the continual rise of numbers suggesting (but by no means proving) a consistent increase in material wealth. The quality of life being fostered by human action should be an important element of any discussion of economic affairs and of government policy, in my view.

Lippincott argues, correctly, that government policies are making work less attractive and are actively encouraging people to drop out of the labor force—while importing people from other countries and alien cultures to replace the native-born Americans whom these policies have driven out of paid employment, which just happens to reduce labor costs for big businesses that contribute massive amounts of campaign money to politicians:

Yet even while Americans are throwing themselves ever more intensely into the grind of corporate life for ever less money, homelessness and welfare usage are ballooning. Tens of millions of adult Americans don’t work at all or only part time, surviving off of government benefits like disability instead of holding down employment. …

Americans who should be working are not. Other workers are throwing themselves into the corporate grind, sacrificing their youth in exchange for declining wages, higher taxes, and a lower quality of life. …

In America, an 18-year-old with a high school diploma and average intelligence should be able to find a job that allows him to pay off the mortgage on a 1600 square foot home in 15 years without needing to pay more than a third of his income per month towards housing. That might sound like a ridiculously high bar in the brutal conditions of Joe Biden’s inflation-ridden economy, but this kind of life isn’t impossible. In fact, within living memory, such economic conditions existed. 

Lippincott calls on businesses to reform their treatment of workers, which is a fine ideal but not likely to occur under the current regime of heavy government regulation and explicit manipulation of the economy for the benefit of big political-campaign donors. Lippincott advocates a generally Trumpian/National Conservative policy approach combined with some explicit pro-market reforms (such as relaxation of the multitude of laws against property improvements and an end of government subsidization of colleges and universities):

By deporting immigrant scab labor, slowly raising tariffs on manufactured goods, and easing absurd zoning and environmental requirements we can build an economy that is much better for blue-collar Americans. That is a political platform worth fighting for.

We should work to assist white-collar workers as well by disrupting the college industrial complex. The federal and state government should cut off aid to higher education in exchange for forgiving the bulk of Americans’ student loan debt. This would cause most American colleges to go belly up, a nearly unrequited good for the country as a whole. Shutting down leftist indoctrination centers that hold the keys to higher salaries and political and cultural power is a good idea. 

The goal of Lippincott’s policy suggestions is a more-humane economy:

At the blue-collar level, American trade and foreign policy should be aimed at cultivating industries in America that can [employ] a person of ordinary intelligence straight out of high school in trades and professions that can provide a good middle-class life. The nature of blue-collar work is such that a more rigid schedule with longer hours need[s] to be the norm.

The tradeoff should be that these workers get to make a good salary with nice benefits without the need for having a high-IQ, lots of credentials, or connections. The American labor market should be such that we always have a “shortage” of labor. In other words, wages should be high and benefits good. In that economic market, there is hardly even a need for unions. Ordinary market forces will propel salaries upwards.

The enhancement of job prospects and income for people who are willing to do real work is a laudable goal. Of course, insofar as big corporations wield power through campaign donations, possible future jobs for ex-lawmakers, etc., government policy will attempt to produce labor gluts, not shortages, so that wages will be as low as possible. Note how often the Federal Reserve worries about unemployment being too low.

The reduction of wages is half the reason for mass immigration being allowed (both legal and illegal), as it is seen to benefit business (by lowering expenses) and socialists (with immigrants’ votes), a classic bootleggers-and-Baptists situation.

This aspect of public choice theory is also why the National Conservative elements of Lippincott’s policy mix will not accomplish what he wants them to: they will be corrupted from the moment that politicians even begin to consider them.

The only viable path to the humane economy Lippincott quite properly advocates is a prodigious reduction in federal government power, which would dramatically reduce all these influences over economic policy—because they could not be implemented.

We should try downsizing government first, and then see what, if any, government interference is required for a truly humane economy. I say that there is just about none, other than maintenance of a fair and just tort system, though I am willing to go wherever the evidence leads.

I invite the National Conservatives and others who want a humane economy to do the same.