Does Nearly Everyone Favor Industrial Policy?

When you walk around, you see no economy. It is not a thing like a machine, a building, or a vehicle. When we say economy, we mean individual persons acting in a series of continuing and more or less regular relationships that involve money in transformation of stuff from less-useful to more-useful forms, as consumers view things. Government officials don’t regulate an economy; they regulate individuals–us!–thereby interfering with our lives, liberties, purposes, and pursuit of happiness.

What Donald Trump Has Shown Us All

It was a fluke, really – a case of the enemy having their guard down that enabled Donald J. Trump to navigate his way to presidential victory in 2016 to begin with.  Personally, I chalk it up to overconfidence on the part of the establishment: A smug certainty that such an entrenched, politically-connected public figure as former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could easily wipe an outspoken billionaire-entrepreneur-turned-TV-personality off the map without much rigging of the system. But of course, they were wrong.

Political “Unity” is Neither Necessary Nor Desirable

“[T]o restore the soul and to secure the future of America,” President Joe Biden said in his inaugural speech, “requires more than words. It requires that most elusive of things in a democracy: Unity. … This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.” The bad news:  Where politics is concerned, “unity” is a pipe dream.