1 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,879 We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emil Jasnski, 2 00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:23,760 culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show 3 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:27,600 at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST. 4 00:00:27,879 --> 00:00:31,079 Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and to the premium 5 00:00:31,160 --> 00:00:35,079 version of our website as well. Today we are joined by the once in 6 00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:41,320 future Federalist Radio Hour guest or In Gass is back. He's, of course, 7 00:00:41,320 --> 00:00:46,240 the executive director over at American Compass, which is out with a remarkable 8 00:00:46,560 --> 00:00:51,759 new handbook, what's called Rebuilding American Capitalism, a handbook for conservative policymakers. 9 00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:56,600 It's in the weeds but also very helpfully, very good on first principles and 10 00:00:56,719 --> 00:00:59,640 principle in general. So, or In, thanks for stopping by to talk 11 00:00:59,679 --> 00:01:03,039 about the Oh, thank you for having me. Yeah, of course, 12 00:01:03,039 --> 00:01:07,280 in full disclosure, I'm an American Compass member. But that side, you 13 00:01:07,319 --> 00:01:11,079 know, there's there's a lot in this to agree with. So I guess 14 00:01:11,079 --> 00:01:15,079 my first question, or In is why socialism and why Now I'm kidding, 15 00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:21,680 I'm kidding, but that that is like the the retort that you get constantly, 16 00:01:22,159 --> 00:01:25,760 um from you know, folks that maybe don't even consider themselves libertarian, 17 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:30,120 maybe they consider themselves conventional conservatives. But look at the project that you've undertaken 18 00:01:30,159 --> 00:01:36,680 over at American Compass and that is fleshed out comprehensively in this handbook, and 19 00:01:36,719 --> 00:01:41,159 say, this is not limited government. This does not fit neatly within you 20 00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:45,640 know, the scope of limited government as it's was conceived by the fusionist project 21 00:01:45,719 --> 00:01:49,239 of the last half century. So I know we've covered all of that on 22 00:01:49,439 --> 00:01:53,519 previous in previous conversations on this podcast, but or in just that basic question 23 00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:57,519 as you review all of the work that you put together in this handbook, 24 00:01:57,799 --> 00:02:01,200 Um, why is it, you know, fundamental part of a conservative vision? 25 00:02:02,439 --> 00:02:06,159 Well, I agree, I think it's exactly the right question, and 26 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:09,960 it's been something that's really been interesting for us to grapple with as we put 27 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:15,360 this together because you know, it's sort of the culmination of the first three 28 00:02:15,439 --> 00:02:20,599 years of our work at American Compass. And what was really fun from sort 29 00:02:20,599 --> 00:02:24,120 of the inside working on it was seeing how much our own thinking has really 30 00:02:24,159 --> 00:02:29,879 developed as we've actually done the research, as we've done the policy development, 31 00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:35,240 to the point where now we really have answers to a lot of questions that 32 00:02:35,240 --> 00:02:39,159 that you know, we couldn't have had initially. We couldn't have had any 33 00:02:39,199 --> 00:02:45,120 of this when when we started, because I don't think anyone's thinking on the 34 00:02:45,199 --> 00:02:50,439 right of center had had developed in this way. And this the sort of 35 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:54,120 is it socialism question that you raised is it's it's exactly the right one, 36 00:02:54,159 --> 00:02:58,840 and it's why we ended up, you know, choosing to title this Rebuilding 37 00:02:58,840 --> 00:03:04,360 American Capitalism because the more work we've done, the more we've realized that what 38 00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:07,000 what so much of this comes down to, and from our perspective, where 39 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:12,960 a lot on the right have gone so wrong is in how they understand what 40 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:17,000 capitalism is. And you see, you know, they're they're very direct quotes 41 00:03:17,159 --> 00:03:22,159 from people like you know, former Center pat to me from from Ambassador Nikki 42 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:27,479 Haley that sort of put forward this idea that capitalism is literally just another word 43 00:03:27,560 --> 00:03:31,759 for freedom, and this idea of the free market is just just what is 44 00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:37,960 out there before any before public policy or government or anything gets in the way, 45 00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:40,080 and that as soon as you do anything beyond that, you know, 46 00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:44,520 as Haley famously said, you're sort of you're on the path to socialism. 47 00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:52,159 And what we've come to understand as we, you know, research the history 48 00:03:52,199 --> 00:03:54,560 of America's economic development, as people looked at what is and isn't working in 49 00:03:54,560 --> 00:04:01,280 our economy today, that that sort of kind of absolute ludhist libertarian concept of 50 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:06,039 freedom isn't capitalism at all. It's it's it is not what Adam Smith was 51 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:11,719 talking about. It's not a model that has ever worked anywhere, and it's 52 00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:15,360 clearly not working here today. And so for us, the project is really 53 00:04:15,960 --> 00:04:18,600 to go back and figure out, you know, what, what did the 54 00:04:18,639 --> 00:04:24,360 classical economists mean by capitalism, what did it mean when it was working well 55 00:04:24,399 --> 00:04:29,639 in America? And why isn't it working today and so And in that respect, 56 00:04:29,639 --> 00:04:33,480 then it is the ultimate conservative project to recognize that there is this incredibly 57 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:39,439 valuable thing that we maybe took for granted but shouldn't have, and we have 58 00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:45,800 to figure out how to strengthen those institutions and guard rails that that provide the 59 00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:49,920 basis for human flourishing. Yeah, I have to say the one policy area 60 00:04:49,959 --> 00:04:55,759 that I feel like is way too unfamiliar to myself and probably to the right 61 00:04:55,800 --> 00:04:59,439 in general, partially because there just aren't a lot of people on the right 62 00:04:59,439 --> 00:05:02,519 who thought differently about this not you know, there are a million different factors 63 00:05:02,560 --> 00:05:05,879 to the blame for that. But you have a section here with essays from 64 00:05:05,959 --> 00:05:12,439 Julius Crime and the great Caleb or on financialization, and I really really think 65 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:15,480 what they write about. So much of this is tied up in it the 66 00:05:15,959 --> 00:05:21,160 kind of culture war red meat conversation about ESG. There's so much that seems 67 00:05:21,199 --> 00:05:26,000 to go right back to this question of financialization. And wanted to start there 68 00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:29,000 by, seeing Warren if you could tell people, if they've never heard the 69 00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:31,600 term, a little bit about what financialization refers to, and then a little 70 00:05:31,639 --> 00:05:38,000 bit about what Julius and Caleb are sort of prescribing going forward. Yeah, 71 00:05:38,040 --> 00:05:42,920 financialization is. It's funny. People will people will do entire seminars on on 72 00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:47,040 what does financialization mean? But you know, the way we think about it, 73 00:05:47,079 --> 00:05:51,519 and as a starting point, it's just the idea that an increasing share 74 00:05:51,560 --> 00:05:58,439 of our economic activity starts to happen in financial markets, and that whereas in 75 00:05:58,519 --> 00:06:02,759 the you know what I would say a proper sense of capitalism, we think 76 00:06:02,800 --> 00:06:08,000 financial markets are important, but we recognize there a means to an end. 77 00:06:08,600 --> 00:06:14,920 You like financial markets because they help bring capital to productive uses, not because 78 00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:18,360 we all benefit when you know, high frequency traders on Wall Street are coming 79 00:06:18,439 --> 00:06:25,439 up with super cool algorithms to earn extra money. And what we've seen in 80 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:30,279 the American economy in recent decades is a real shift to basically financed for its 81 00:06:30,279 --> 00:06:36,079 own sake. I mean, we've seen a larger share of economic economic activity 82 00:06:36,199 --> 00:06:42,240 happening in financial markets. We see a much larger share of the economy's profits 83 00:06:42,319 --> 00:06:47,519 going to financial markets. We see financial markets taking a lot more capital out 84 00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:53,079 of the real economy instead of investing it into the real economy. We see 85 00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:57,399 more and more of the top business talent going to work and venture capital and 86 00:06:57,439 --> 00:07:01,439 private equity and hedge funds instead of building the businesses that would actually use capital. 87 00:07:02,240 --> 00:07:06,279 And so so all of that together is sort of the picture of financialization. 88 00:07:08,480 --> 00:07:13,399 And you know what folks like Caleb and Caleb Or and Julius Crime who 89 00:07:13,480 --> 00:07:18,279 wrote for this handbook really emphasize, and I think it's so important to recognize, 90 00:07:18,319 --> 00:07:24,439 is that you really can distinguish the productive from the unproductive. Right, 91 00:07:24,439 --> 00:07:26,879 I mean, I think one of the sort of knee jerk reactions on the 92 00:07:26,959 --> 00:07:30,920 right of center as soon as somebody starts talking about bad things happening in a 93 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:33,879 market is to say we, well, like, who are you to decide 94 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:38,839 or you know, how how should we judge what is good and what isn't 95 00:07:39,519 --> 00:07:45,639 and and those turn out to be just really sort of shallow objections. We 96 00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:51,600 really have a very rich vocabulary and ability to understand what we want to see 97 00:07:51,639 --> 00:07:59,000 financial markets doing. What it looks like when capital from savers is actually brought 98 00:07:59,279 --> 00:08:03,560 to a product of use invested in ways that create things in the real world. 99 00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:09,759 And it's pretty easy to conversely see when that's now what's happening at all? 100 00:08:09,800 --> 00:08:15,040 When you just have piles of paper assets going around in circles, creating 101 00:08:15,279 --> 00:08:20,879 a lot of paper wealth for people, but not actually creating any prosperity in 102 00:08:22,879 --> 00:08:26,720 the country. And so I think it's a key piece of what has gone 103 00:08:26,759 --> 00:08:33,039 wrong with capitalism, where if the easiest way to make money is to do 104 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:37,279 that stuff, then then that's what people will do. The invisible hand can 105 00:08:37,320 --> 00:08:41,480 just as quickly push everybody off into trading bitcoin as it can push people toward 106 00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:48,399 doing something useful, and so for policymakers it's it's a real challenge what do 107 00:08:48,399 --> 00:08:52,320 you do and the best ways to make a profit in the economy, aren't 108 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:56,000 the kind of things that are actually going to produce social value. And one 109 00:08:56,039 --> 00:09:01,559 of the wildest things is hearing people like Nikki Haley, who was on the 110 00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:05,720 board of Bowing talk about markets in the way that she talks about them and 111 00:09:05,879 --> 00:09:11,320 to pivot in a very maybe unexpected way, but when it makes sense to 112 00:09:11,360 --> 00:09:15,159 me at least be thinking about just having a conversation with someone about how they 113 00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:18,279 they're gonna, you know, their friends are gonna keep shopping at, for 114 00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:20,200 instance, Target, you know, social conservatives going to keep shopping at Target, 115 00:09:20,240 --> 00:09:24,440 because what is the alternative is it Coals where they have the same problems 116 00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:28,879 as Walmart, where they probably have the same problems. None of these corporations 117 00:09:30,039 --> 00:09:33,720 are responsive to market forces in the way that you would expect them to be. 118 00:09:33,759 --> 00:09:37,720 And you know, you might have someone like ruevek Roma Roma Swami out 119 00:09:37,759 --> 00:09:41,799 there talking about how it's about ESG, but I think ESG is symptomatic of 120 00:09:41,879 --> 00:09:46,600 something in and of itself that goes to the question of financialization. So to 121 00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:52,559 maybe put that question in a discernible way, if you were talking to a 122 00:09:52,639 --> 00:09:58,600 presidential candidate or about how they should you be thinking about policies, you know, 123 00:09:58,679 --> 00:10:01,639 not just whining about out bud light or target, but thinking about policies. 124 00:10:03,559 --> 00:10:07,200 Would financialization be a part of that? Oh? Absolutely, And I 125 00:10:07,240 --> 00:10:11,840 think you know a lot of the things that you just highlighted are they're sort 126 00:10:11,879 --> 00:10:16,120 of the second order consequences of financialization because one of the things that we get 127 00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:24,000 with financialization is this incredible sort of disaggregation of ownership. And what I mean 128 00:10:24,039 --> 00:10:28,440 by that is it's not actually clear who owns a company at this point, 129 00:10:28,639 --> 00:10:31,519 right, we have we have the sort of Milton Friedman sense that you know, 130 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:35,279 shareholders own companies, and shareholders want to earn, you know, make 131 00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:43,120 money, and therefore managers are responsible to make money for shareholders. And and 132 00:10:43,519 --> 00:10:46,519 that's maybe fine as far as it goes. I mean, we could talk 133 00:10:46,519 --> 00:10:50,720 about whether that was useful or not in nineteen seventy when he wrote it, 134 00:10:50,159 --> 00:10:54,600 but if you look at the economy today, you know, let's take I 135 00:10:54,720 --> 00:10:58,240 like using Apple as an example, right, Okay, So Tim Cook is 136 00:10:58,279 --> 00:11:03,320 the CEO of Apple. Who is he accountable to, Well, he's accountable 137 00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:07,799 to his board of directors, who are supposed to be elected by the shareholders. 138 00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:13,799 But the shareholders if you look at who actually holds the most Apple stock. 139 00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:18,720 It's these large institutional investors. It's black Rock and Fidelity, it's mutual 140 00:11:18,759 --> 00:11:22,960 funds. If you look behind that and say, okay, but who gave 141 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:26,240 their money to those people? A lot of times, almost half of US 142 00:11:26,279 --> 00:11:31,720 stocks are now owned by foreigners. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with a 143 00:11:31,799 --> 00:11:37,080 foreigner, but people in other countries don't necessarily have the same interests as as 144 00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:43,000 Americans do. And in fact, in a lot of cases that foreign money 145 00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:46,879 is in sovereign wealth funds. So it's actually, you know, the Chinese 146 00:11:46,919 --> 00:11:54,480 government or the Saudi government that technically holds holds the shares. So are they 147 00:11:54,559 --> 00:11:58,159 the people who Tim Cook is accountable to? And what you start to realize 148 00:11:58,240 --> 00:12:01,759 is two things. First of all, well, that's not really who we 149 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:09,120 want an American CEO to be accountable for capitalism to work. And this is 150 00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:11,960 where we sort of started the conversation, what do you need for capitalism to 151 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:18,679 work? Well, you actually need the owners of businesses, the people with 152 00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:22,679 the capital to want to be doing things that are also going to be good 153 00:12:22,720 --> 00:12:28,639 for the country. And if those aren't aligned, then the system's not going 154 00:12:28,679 --> 00:12:33,879 to work. So that's one huge problem. And the flip side is there's 155 00:12:33,879 --> 00:12:37,440 a sense in which Tim Cook isn't really accountable to anybody at all. He 156 00:12:37,639 --> 00:12:43,320 really cares a lot about what his friends think of him. He cares a 157 00:12:43,360 --> 00:12:48,480 lot about which conferences he gets invited to, and he cares a lot about 158 00:12:48,600 --> 00:12:52,240 making sure that the board, which is mostly his friends and the people at 159 00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:56,519 the conferences, think he's doing a good job. And so when you see 160 00:12:56,559 --> 00:13:01,840 these ESG initiatives, when you see the extent to which socially progressive causes are 161 00:13:01,879 --> 00:13:05,639 now front and center, even at the expensive profit, what you're seeing I 162 00:13:05,639 --> 00:13:11,720 think is it is in part a consequence of financialization. It's a consequence of 163 00:13:11,279 --> 00:13:16,559 the way capitalism is supposed to work, with actual people being accountable for the 164 00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:24,399 decisions and companies being replaced by this vague set of abstractions that pretty much leaves 165 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:31,120 managers kind of free to do whatever they want. The watched Auto Wall Street 166 00:13:31,159 --> 00:13:35,360 podcast with Chris Markowski Every Day. Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and 167 00:13:35,360 --> 00:13:39,440 the economy and how it affects your wallet. If you're using one credit card 168 00:13:39,440 --> 00:13:41,200 to pay off another credit card, are you really getting read of your debt? 169 00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:45,799 Add that to spending even more of your tax dollars that they don't have. 170 00:13:46,039 --> 00:13:48,399 That's what the federal government got from this debt deal. Any reason why 171 00:13:48,399 --> 00:13:52,960 another deal needs to be made in the presidential election cycle, whether it's happening 172 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:54,919 in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. 173 00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:58,960 Check out the watched Auto on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, 174 00:13:58,039 --> 00:14:05,159 Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. And this seems like a vast, 175 00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:11,600 almost impossible task, the task of reigning all of this in. Where 176 00:14:11,919 --> 00:14:16,279 would a let's say, a Republican president, actually a democratic president too, 177 00:14:16,279 --> 00:14:18,519 will just open it up to everyone since it should, you know, theoretically 178 00:14:18,519 --> 00:14:22,440 be appealing to everyone. But what would a democratic president, Republican president, 179 00:14:22,559 --> 00:14:26,679 or a congress frankly that was interested in dealing with some of the stuff start. 180 00:14:28,799 --> 00:14:33,320 Yeah, So I think there's there's a few different ways to get at 181 00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:37,799 the problem. You know, one is to go straight at the financial legislation 182 00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:43,559 itself and say, you know, we are going to separate productive from unproductive 183 00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:48,440 activity on Wall Street, and we're going to discourage the unproductive activity. So, 184 00:14:48,519 --> 00:14:54,080 for instance, many countries have what's called a financial transaction tax, Basically, 185 00:14:54,080 --> 00:14:58,080 if you have to pay an extremely small tax every time you do a 186 00:14:58,159 --> 00:15:03,320 trade, then trading for its own sake that doesn't create real value becomes unattractive 187 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:09,559 pretty quickly. London has a financial transaction tax, Hong Kong has a financial 188 00:15:09,559 --> 00:15:15,159 transaction tax. These are perfectly compatible with deep, well functioning financial markets. 189 00:15:15,639 --> 00:15:20,120 They just put a finger on the scale for doing useful things instead of useless 190 00:15:20,159 --> 00:15:24,240 things. So you can do that. You can have a lot of rules 191 00:15:24,240 --> 00:15:28,879 that specifically target private equity funds and hedge funds and require them to, for 192 00:15:28,919 --> 00:15:33,279 instance, disclose what they're actually doing, what their performance actually is, so 193 00:15:33,320 --> 00:15:39,600 that they're not just taking a lot of public pension money and not accomplishing a 194 00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:43,679 lot with it. You can change tax laws so that right now we actually 195 00:15:43,679 --> 00:15:50,679 give a preference to borrowing. So if you raise money by selling stock and 196 00:15:50,960 --> 00:15:56,360 sort of the traditional capitalist model, you have to pay taxes on all your 197 00:15:56,399 --> 00:16:02,159 profits before you can give any profit back to your sharehol holders. But if 198 00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:07,320 you borrow money, you can actually pay your interest back to the back to 199 00:16:07,320 --> 00:16:11,759 your creditors before you have to pay taxes on it. So there's there's a 200 00:16:11,759 --> 00:16:15,240 tremendous amount of activity that's just going around borrowing money that's going to be at 201 00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:21,399 a tax advantage basis, and then turning around and using the borrowed money to 202 00:16:21,759 --> 00:16:26,360 buy back shares and return more money to shareholders. That way, these this 203 00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:30,840 kind of financial engineering if you want to be nice, or manipulation, if 204 00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:33,879 you want to be less nice. Again, it's just it's not good, 205 00:16:33,919 --> 00:16:40,240 and there's no reason we can't say it's not good and have laws and a 206 00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:45,120 tax code that that reflect that. So there's stuff we can do directly on 207 00:16:45,679 --> 00:16:49,080 financialization, and then just quickly on kind of the you know, the ownership 208 00:16:49,159 --> 00:16:55,440 side or the the issues with ESG and so forth. I think it's really 209 00:16:55,440 --> 00:17:00,919 important that we can think about how we want capitalism to work. Who do 210 00:17:00,960 --> 00:17:06,720 we think should be making the decisions about how a business operates. And that's 211 00:17:06,759 --> 00:17:11,160 something that for conservatives in particular, that question at first sounds really strange, 212 00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:14,599 like well, wait, wait a minute, that's like, that's not a 213 00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:17,559 question we're supposed to be allowed to ask. There's supposed to just be some 214 00:17:17,759 --> 00:17:22,079 clear, true market answer, But the reality is that there isn't. In 215 00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:26,400 fact, when you think about all of the people who have a stake in 216 00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:29,880 a company, you know, if if you are one of those people who 217 00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:34,559 have lended money to the company, you're expecting to get back interest payments, 218 00:17:34,799 --> 00:17:38,640 but you don't have any say on how the company operates. On the other 219 00:17:38,680 --> 00:17:41,599 hand, if you're somebody who bought stock in the company, we see you 220 00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:45,319 as the owner, and we say you do decide how the company operates. 221 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:51,240 But those two questions of who's entitled to the profits of the company and who 222 00:17:51,279 --> 00:17:56,000 gets to make the decisions for the company, those are two different questions, 223 00:17:56,079 --> 00:18:00,559 and any legal regime has to decide how you want to you to be that 224 00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:03,799 up. So I think one thing that's really important to think about is who 225 00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:07,480 are the groups who should get to have a say in making decisions about how 226 00:18:07,480 --> 00:18:14,640 a business operates. Obviously shareholders are one hugely important one, but I think 227 00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:18,119 it would be a good idea to say only some shareholders really count. And 228 00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:21,920 you see this in some companies that have different classes of shares. I think 229 00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:23,240 it would make a lot of sense to say, you know, if you're 230 00:18:23,519 --> 00:18:29,960 an actual, identifiable American person who owns stock in a company, you should 231 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:34,400 have a say in how the company operates. But if you're an ambiguous investment 232 00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:38,319 vehicle, that is invested through a different investment vehicle that has put its money 233 00:18:38,319 --> 00:18:42,519 in black Rock, that has then put its money into the company. Yeah, 234 00:18:42,519 --> 00:18:45,440 you can still have a share of the dividends, but actually you don't 235 00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:49,079 get a vote. Sorry. And on the other hand, you know who 236 00:18:49,079 --> 00:18:53,160 maybe should have a vote? Workers? Maybe workers should have a vote. 237 00:18:53,599 --> 00:18:59,079 And so starting to think about that and actually realizing we get to decide as 238 00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:04,240 a nation and through our policymakers, how we want capitalism to work, and 239 00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:10,200 recognize we need it to work better, I think is exactly where conservatives should 240 00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:15,440 focus. There's a somewhat famous chart that is actually goes back to AEI. 241 00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:19,319 It's on eight Ideas. I'm sure you've seen it. We're in where you 242 00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:23,480 see the price of goods over the last like thirty years, and the very 243 00:19:23,559 --> 00:19:30,839 heavily subsidized but essential industry is a housing, healthcare have shot up while the 244 00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:36,400 price of consumer goods TVs, electronics, etc. Have plummeted. And this 245 00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:42,000 is I mean, obviously very very sad visual. But it depresses me because 246 00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:48,680 I wonder whether you know the libertarian skeptic who would say, what we really 247 00:19:48,720 --> 00:19:56,680 need is a consumer base that you know, sorry, you know if consumers 248 00:19:56,680 --> 00:20:00,759 aren't interested in buying American If consumers aren't interested did in paying a little extra 249 00:20:00,960 --> 00:20:07,119 more for their their you know, cheap Amazon goods, Um, then you 250 00:20:07,119 --> 00:20:10,119 know it doesn't matter. You can take all of these financialization steps and the 251 00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:12,559 market is still going to produce the same result. And you know, there 252 00:20:12,559 --> 00:20:15,680 are a million different rebuttals to that. But one thing that does worry me 253 00:20:15,799 --> 00:20:18,480 is, you know, do we have a culture? Um? You know, 254 00:20:18,799 --> 00:20:22,759 what did John Adams say? Our constitution was for moral people? And 255 00:20:22,839 --> 00:20:27,240 there are other quotes from the founding that have expressed a center a similar sentiment. 256 00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:33,880 Do we even have a culture or that would support you know, desirable 257 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:37,839 market ends or is that also what you're trying to do with the family policy 258 00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:41,960 in the handbook? It has to be both at the same time. I 259 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:45,160 think we have a culture that that would support it, and I think it's 260 00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:52,720 important to recognize the sort of ways in which the cultural and economic issues are 261 00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:59,160 are intertwined. Um. You know, I think one bad habit that a 262 00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:03,000 lot of us on the right center have gotten into is to look at problems 263 00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:07,680 out there in the world and not want to have government involved in them, 264 00:21:07,680 --> 00:21:12,960 and therefore declare it's a culture problem. And implicit in that phrase it's a 265 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:18,759 culture problem, which anyone who's spent time in right of center circles has heard 266 00:21:18,839 --> 00:21:26,599 frequently is that it may be a culture problem, but it's almost never only 267 00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:33,160 a culture problem. There are always dimensions both in terms of what is influencing 268 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:38,559 the culture that that public policy plays an important role in, and and then 269 00:21:38,599 --> 00:21:44,200 there are elements of it that really are a direct result of public policy. 270 00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:48,000 And so, you know, I think that point about kind of well Americans 271 00:21:48,039 --> 00:21:52,920 just want cheap stuff is a perfect example where, yes, other things equal, 272 00:21:53,599 --> 00:21:57,960 people like to choose the cheaper thing. And obviously we have a very 273 00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:06,000 consumerist culture in America. But let's recognize the role that public policy plays here 274 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:10,119 in a couple of respects. One one piece of it is just that there's 275 00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:14,519 a collective action problem. I can believe as as strongly as I want that 276 00:22:14,559 --> 00:22:19,880 America would be better off if we produced more things domestically and there was more 277 00:22:22,240 --> 00:22:26,599 domestic demand for manufacturing and we had more of that investment here. But which 278 00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:33,960 thing I personally buy at Walmart has no effect on that. So I can 279 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:37,160 sort of personally in a like you know, virtuous signaling sort of way, 280 00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:41,240 go and spend more money if I want. But we have a collective action 281 00:22:41,319 --> 00:22:47,160 problem, and you know, it's really good at solving collective action problems government. 282 00:22:47,319 --> 00:22:52,599 That's in some respect the premise of government is to identify collective action problems 283 00:22:52,599 --> 00:22:56,920 that we actually want to solve, and so for conservative it's to sort of 284 00:22:56,119 --> 00:23:03,680 predisqualify public policy from solving these problems. It's basically circular, and you can 285 00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:08,319 just break that circle and say, well, no, actually, given the 286 00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:15,400 things that we care about and the outcomes we want, we should want government 287 00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:18,680 to play a role here. And it's absolutely valid to recognize that we should 288 00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:23,519 have a preference for, for instance, making things here and creating jobs here, 289 00:23:25,079 --> 00:23:30,759 even if that does mean that some things are more expensive. So there's 290 00:23:30,799 --> 00:23:33,359 that piece of it, and then I think there's there's the broader way in 291 00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:42,359 which we have to recognize that that public policy has created this this market system 292 00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:48,440 that says essentially the only goal in all cases is to consume more stuff as 293 00:23:48,839 --> 00:23:52,720 cheaply as possible. I mean, that is fun. That is the core 294 00:23:52,759 --> 00:23:56,799 of the economic philosophy that we've been operating under. And an economists will tell 295 00:23:56,839 --> 00:24:00,480 you that bluntly, they'll say, well that easy, in fact the purpose 296 00:24:00,519 --> 00:24:06,839 of economics, and so that is an enormous opportunity for conservatives, and I 297 00:24:06,839 --> 00:24:11,559 think one that most Americans would prefer to what they have been hearing to say, 298 00:24:11,599 --> 00:24:15,119 Well, that's actually a really lousy way to do things, and most 299 00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:18,000 of what actually matters in life is not cheap stuff, and there's a real 300 00:24:18,039 --> 00:24:22,519 opportunity here to do a lot better. Right. There's the sort of oft 301 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:27,200 misconstrued truism from Andrew Bribert. The politics is downstream of culture, which of 302 00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:33,839 course never precluded the idea that culture is as is also a downstream of politics, 303 00:24:33,839 --> 00:24:37,039 as are not mutually exclusive things. I want to ask. We've talked 304 00:24:37,039 --> 00:24:42,319 about labor policy before on a sort of thirty thousand foot level. There's a 305 00:24:42,319 --> 00:24:45,759 lot of good stuff in the labor section here from Jonathan Barry and others. 306 00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:51,799 Is it I'm thinking of this in the context of the last month's immigration debate, 307 00:24:51,839 --> 00:24:55,839 which you waited bravely into as well and took all kinds of buck again 308 00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:00,400 from the libertarians. But is it short of a total to overhaul just just 309 00:25:00,519 --> 00:25:07,680 thinking of the politics of the possible, Can labor be bolstered without also bolstering 310 00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,920 a giant, you know, anti family political interest group, a giant open 311 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:15,519 borders political interest group. When you think about the fact that s the sciu 312 00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:22,000 UM, you know, believes in amnesty and essentially you know, the consequential 313 00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:26,240 open borders at the that would be downstream of that, is it possible to 314 00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,880 do that without overhauling the entire system and also not benefiting you know, these 315 00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:36,240 these groups that also would would undercut you know, the wages at the ends 316 00:25:36,279 --> 00:25:37,599 when it comes to you know, what you and Michael Lynn talk about with 317 00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:44,279 wages and family policy as well. Well, I think there are sort of 318 00:25:44,319 --> 00:25:48,880 two intersecting issues there that are really interesting. One is to your point that 319 00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,000 labor, as we talk about it in America today, meaning you know, 320 00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:57,480 big labor unions like the SEIU, is actually doing a terrible job of representing 321 00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:03,960 American workers. And if you look at the issues that these labor unions choose 322 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:10,440 to focus their energy on, the overlap with issues preferred by the Democratic Party 323 00:26:10,799 --> 00:26:15,559 is basically perfect, and the overlap with issues that matter to American workers is 324 00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:22,359 basically random, and so on the one hand, that's that's obviously a huge 325 00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:26,160 problem, but It also, on the other hand, speaks to a huge 326 00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:33,279 opportunity. There's a tremendous amount that could be done in the field of labor 327 00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:40,440 law in terms of how organizations representing workers operate, that could be doing so 328 00:26:40,519 --> 00:26:45,440 much more for workers than these unions are today. And so in the labor 329 00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,200 context, if you look at, for instance, in the book, the 330 00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:52,200 set of policies we talk about, they're all focused on exactly that idea. 331 00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:57,880 How do we get back to a labor movement that is actually focused on advancing 332 00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:03,799 the interests of workers, because because that's something I certainly think conservatives should support, 333 00:27:03,839 --> 00:27:07,440 and by the way, historically that that's a lot more what the labor 334 00:27:07,519 --> 00:27:11,000 movement was. I mean, if you go back to the origins of it, 335 00:27:11,039 --> 00:27:15,960 you know, folks like like Samuel Gompers Um. He was militantly nonpartisan 336 00:27:17,079 --> 00:27:21,680 and insistent that that if labor unions became partisan, affiliated with one party, 337 00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:25,200 it was going to be a disaster for frankly, a lot of the reasons 338 00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:26,720 we now see it being a disaster. I mean, all the way through 339 00:27:26,759 --> 00:27:34,559 the fifties, Um, certainly you had very kind of bipartisan or nonpartisan orientation 340 00:27:36,799 --> 00:27:40,920 of labor unions and their commit their connection to political parties. Richard Dixon had 341 00:27:41,039 --> 00:27:45,240 had a great relationship with UM with with union leaders. It's it's really only 342 00:27:45,279 --> 00:27:49,240 in recent decades that we've ended up with kind of labor as synonymous with the 343 00:27:49,279 --> 00:27:55,000 Democratic Party. And so actually fixing that should be a piece of labor reform. 344 00:27:55,079 --> 00:27:59,599 And that's saying that we talk about just saying labor unions can't be political, 345 00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,640 just like you know, nonprofits can't be political. I mean, that 346 00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:07,640 doesn't mean you can't advocate for things. Obviously, American Compass is a great 347 00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,640 example. We are a nonprofit. We spend all of our time advocating for 348 00:28:11,799 --> 00:28:15,240 things, but we're sure as heck not to allowed to raise money for the 349 00:28:15,279 --> 00:28:19,440 Democratic Party or raise money for the Republican Party. And so putting those kinds 350 00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:25,279 of constraints on worker organizations and saying, you know, again, as with 351 00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:27,960 nonprofits, if a worker organization wants to set up a pack and raise money 352 00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:32,599 for it, by all means, but let's keep that separate from the core 353 00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:37,240 economic role that that workers need those organizations to play for them. So so 354 00:28:37,279 --> 00:28:41,160 that's one piece that we really focus on in the labor policy context, and 355 00:28:41,559 --> 00:28:45,440 then the other that's that's broader, and I think you just said goes exactly 356 00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,920 to um. You know, Mike Linda's tremendous work on this is do book 357 00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:55,119 Hell to Pay is fantastic on this point. Is there's just a basic way 358 00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:57,960 in which, as part and parcel of what we were just talking about with 359 00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:04,759 with our consumption culture and economics as just a discipline of maximizing cheap stuff and 360 00:29:04,799 --> 00:29:11,000 consumption, a huge piece of that is that we're a cheap labor culture that 361 00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,799 informal economics in the way our policymakers approach things. You know, sure they'll 362 00:29:15,799 --> 00:29:19,799 say good jobs, you know, fair wages, whatever else, but at 363 00:29:19,839 --> 00:29:25,200 the end of the day, they actually treat labor like just as a commodity, 364 00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:27,519 the same way they treat oil or would. And the idea is the 365 00:29:27,599 --> 00:29:30,440 more of it is that we have, the cheaper it is, the better 366 00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:34,400 off will be. And if you just want to have lots of cheap stuff, 367 00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:40,119 that might be true. But a huge piece of what we are arguing 368 00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:42,039 for a American compass, and again what I think should be core to a 369 00:29:42,079 --> 00:29:49,119 conservative vision of capitalism is that labor isn't like wood or oil. I hate 370 00:29:49,119 --> 00:29:52,799 that I have to say that, but this would actually be a controversial point 371 00:29:52,880 --> 00:30:00,640 in especially right of center economics. We actually want labor to be expensive in 372 00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:06,519 some respects. What could be better for American working families than for labor to 373 00:30:06,559 --> 00:30:14,160 be expensive. And so that shift in mindset and recognizing that high wages can 374 00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,920 be a good thing, especially you know, speaking of those who have have 375 00:30:18,079 --> 00:30:22,359 lower wages today, getting those wages up, that has to be a priority, 376 00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:26,440 even if it makes stuff more expensive in some cases, and that is 377 00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:33,920 just not something that policymakers have taken seriously for or really since the onset of 378 00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,200 globalization, you know, thirty or forty years ago. I'm doing the Devil's 379 00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:44,319 advocate thing here because I mostly think it's fun, but it's also just it's 380 00:30:44,359 --> 00:30:48,440 helpful, I think because some of our listeners who might still be on the 381 00:30:48,279 --> 00:30:52,880 libertarian maybe conventional conservative mindset, who see them, well, they they've already 382 00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:56,880 they've already turned off the podcast there, John God, or they're hate listening, 383 00:30:57,279 --> 00:31:03,119 but they maybe see this stuff is like being reflectively opposed to their version 384 00:31:03,119 --> 00:31:07,319 of conservatism. But all that is to say, how do you um make 385 00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:15,000 goods more expensive and then also encourage people to have more children? Bigger families, 386 00:31:15,039 --> 00:31:18,079 like they're What they would say to that is, well, you're making 387 00:31:18,079 --> 00:31:21,039 it more expensive to have bigger families. Well you're also asking the government to 388 00:31:21,039 --> 00:31:25,200 subsidize having bigger families. But why does this sort of all actually really work 389 00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:30,759 together, um for the sort of ecosystem. Yeah, that it's a really 390 00:31:30,839 --> 00:31:33,680 good question, and I think it goes to, you know, a point 391 00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:37,799 that's that's been lost also in a lot of the recent debates around inflation. 392 00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:41,720 I mean, obviously, you know the country has had a major inflation problem 393 00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:45,559 over the past couple of years. Um. You know, the rate has 394 00:31:45,599 --> 00:31:49,240 certainly come down from the you know, eight nine percent that we were facing, 395 00:31:49,319 --> 00:31:55,079 but it's it's still well above two percent um. But but the striking 396 00:31:55,119 --> 00:31:59,720 thing is that that although economists like to sort of say, well, you 397 00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:04,240 know, wage growth is too high and a labor shortage and these wages are 398 00:32:04,319 --> 00:32:10,240 driving inflation, if you actually look, wages are growing slower and inflation is 399 00:32:10,359 --> 00:32:15,160 rising. So so real wages, the sort of value that people are earning 400 00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:20,559 that they can they can buy in the market, Um, those real wages 401 00:32:20,559 --> 00:32:24,480 are declining, um. And and it's it's other things. You know, 402 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:30,920 Hey, what about corporate profits m that appear more to be sort of driving 403 00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:35,920 the inflation. And so it's it's certainly true that over the last couple of 404 00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:39,519 years we've seen a situation that's that's very difficult for working families in a lot 405 00:32:39,559 --> 00:32:45,000 of cases. But if you think about a hypothetical situation, you know, 406 00:32:45,039 --> 00:32:50,480 let's say we actually got serious about enforcing our immigration laws and created a tighter 407 00:32:50,559 --> 00:32:55,039 labor market for lower wage workers in particular, and they started seeing their wages 408 00:32:55,119 --> 00:33:00,079 rise as a result, and that some of that was being passed on to 409 00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:07,319 consumers, Well, the wages would rise a lot faster than prices rise because 410 00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:13,279 that low wage labor is only one piece of all the costs that go into 411 00:33:13,279 --> 00:33:15,799 the stuff. Right, if you think about the you know, even something 412 00:33:15,799 --> 00:33:19,960 that we think is really labor intensive product, like say, you know, 413 00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:23,079 let us in the supermarket, well maybe ten percent of the cost of that 414 00:33:23,279 --> 00:33:29,079 let us is actually the low wage labor on the farm. So if you 415 00:33:29,279 --> 00:33:37,240 dramatically increase the earnings of lower income households because there's actually real, real demand 416 00:33:37,359 --> 00:33:43,480 for their work in the labor market, their wages will go up a lot 417 00:33:43,519 --> 00:33:46,640 faster than prices go up, and they will be better off as a result. 418 00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:52,240 Now, who won't be better off as a result is some of the 419 00:33:52,319 --> 00:33:57,359 higher income folks who have benefited from very tight labor markets for a long time 420 00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:02,000 and have gotten lots of wage increases. Um. Their wages might rise less 421 00:34:02,079 --> 00:34:10,960 quickly than prices rise. But frankly, I'm okay with that. I find 422 00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:15,559 it very funny that for decades, while we had a labor market where you 423 00:34:15,599 --> 00:34:19,760 know, high wage workers for seeing a lot of demand for their labor, 424 00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,159 their wages were going up, they were doing better, and low wage maker, 425 00:34:22,599 --> 00:34:25,559 low wage workers weren't. You know, Everybody said, well, that 426 00:34:25,559 --> 00:34:29,920 that's just the market working. That's that's just that's the trends, and that's 427 00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,920 inevitable, and what can you do about it? If you contemplate a world 428 00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:37,400 where lower wage workers are actually the ones with significant power in the labor market 429 00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:42,800 and there are real, you know, real real lack of workers available there, 430 00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:46,360 and their wages are the ones that start to go up, um, 431 00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:51,599 then everyone screams and says this is an economic crisis. And I just don't 432 00:34:51,599 --> 00:34:59,039 see why. It seems to me that that that that is a perfectly that 433 00:34:59,079 --> 00:35:02,440 outcome is perfectly consistent with how markets are supposed to operate, and again it's 434 00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:07,559 the sort of outcome that we should be expecting capitalism to deliver if capitalism is 435 00:35:07,559 --> 00:35:13,159 actually working well. It's one of the interesting things about the Michael Lend book, 436 00:35:13,199 --> 00:35:16,960 and obviously he's not a conservative, but to the extent that right makes 437 00:35:17,039 --> 00:35:22,159 arguments about inequality, even by other names, it's typically cultural reasons, right, 438 00:35:22,199 --> 00:35:27,119 that there's this sort of elite cabal, which basically there is that's pulling 439 00:35:27,119 --> 00:35:31,199 the strings. But because of socioeconomic stratification, there's also this cultural stratification. 440 00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:35,079 And I think all of that is important. But something I like about the 441 00:35:35,079 --> 00:35:37,239 handbook. That I liked about the new Lend book is that it makes this 442 00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:43,880 argument. You know, there's there's something wrong about the stratification period, and 443 00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:49,840 it has to do with the market not valuing labor fairly. And of course 444 00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:52,840 the libertarian would say, well, it's fair if that's what the value is. 445 00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:57,119 But we know that we don't sort of work in this perfect Randy and 446 00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:02,440 lab under perfect Randy and lab can So why actually the handbook starts with this, 447 00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:09,679 um, why is it that this inequality is worth addressing through policy? 448 00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:16,800 Means? Well, inequality is I think a huge issue that everybody should take 449 00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:22,079 seriously, but again, frankly, especially conservatives. I mean, this is 450 00:36:22,119 --> 00:36:25,280 this is one of these places where it's really important to recognize that libertarians are 451 00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:30,639 just not conservative. Um, you know, I think, for instance, 452 00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:34,119 there's also a lot of work done by by the folks at AI trying to 453 00:36:34,199 --> 00:36:37,440 show that well, you know, if if somebody's earning the same amount they 454 00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:42,880 were earning in nineteen seventy, well then that means they're just as well off 455 00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:45,000 as they were in nineteen seventy. They have the same amount of stuff, 456 00:36:45,039 --> 00:36:51,320 It doesn't matter what it shouldn't matter what's happening to everybody else around them. 457 00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:55,880 And that's obviously ludicrous. I mean, partly it's it is a it reflects 458 00:36:55,880 --> 00:37:02,679 a total failure to understand human nature and reality, which are things conservatives pride 459 00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:08,880 themselves on trying to do well. But it's also a failure to recognize where 460 00:37:09,599 --> 00:37:15,880 value comes from and how we experience things in life. That if if you're 461 00:37:16,119 --> 00:37:22,119 thinking about buying a present for your kid, and in nineteen seventy you can 462 00:37:22,159 --> 00:37:25,320 afford the same bike that all the other kids are going to be riding around, 463 00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:30,320 and in twenty twenty you can buy that same bike for your kid, 464 00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:34,280 but everyone else has, you know, bikes that are I don't know what's 465 00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:37,440 different about bikes these days. I'm sure there are much cooler things, that's 466 00:37:39,159 --> 00:37:45,360 sure. Whatever, And because now it's the twenty twenties and we're supposed to 467 00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,079 tell that person like, well, I don't understand what the problem is. 468 00:37:49,119 --> 00:37:52,719 That's just as good a bike as in nineteen seventy. Like, obviously that 469 00:37:52,880 --> 00:38:00,679 is going to that has different value for the consumer if we want to think 470 00:38:00,679 --> 00:38:06,079 about it in consumer terms, and obviously it's it's going to be toxic to 471 00:38:06,199 --> 00:38:10,400 our to our social fabric. And so so I think, you know, 472 00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:15,519 there's one question. There's there's the empirical question of what has happened to inequality 473 00:38:15,519 --> 00:38:17,880 and how much worse has it gotten? And certainly, you know, all 474 00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:22,559 the data says it has gotten worse. There we have long debase about how 475 00:38:22,639 --> 00:38:28,280 much worse, but other things equal, it should be something that conservatives are 476 00:38:29,199 --> 00:38:35,039 focusing in intensive attention on and trying to understand what is it about our market 477 00:38:36,039 --> 00:38:43,679 that is leading some people to to accrue such sizable gains and other people to 478 00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:49,519 really be left behind. Because exactly as you just said, there's not some 479 00:38:50,159 --> 00:38:55,519 law of nature that says, you know, investment banking is like a way 480 00:38:55,559 --> 00:39:01,519 more valuable thing than like construction. I mean by most standards, like well, 481 00:39:01,559 --> 00:39:07,840 gosh, the person building houses is actually building houses, and you know 482 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,320 they're in awful lot of ways. That's a more pleasant thing to be doing 483 00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:15,320 all day than than than the work and investment banker does all day. But 484 00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:22,119 given our current market conditions, the market, the investment banker accrues a lot 485 00:39:22,199 --> 00:39:28,440 more income, and so it's worth asking how do we feel about those market 486 00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:32,119 conditions, and are there places where we've made public policy choices that have amplified 487 00:39:34,119 --> 00:39:39,320 that that set of disparities, and where other other choices might might instead damp 488 00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:45,280 in such disparities. Because I would rather live in a world that that recognize 489 00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:50,400 that those two workers, you know, certainly one is not working harder than 490 00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:55,119 the other, necessarily one is not of hiring intrinsic worth than the other, 491 00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:59,719 And so I'd like to live in a world where they can both support their 492 00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:05,039 family, leasing middle class security at least, right it shouldn't be so controversial, 493 00:40:05,079 --> 00:40:07,079 but here we are. The last question I have for or In is 494 00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:15,360 whether you think the primary field and on the Republican side is shaping up as 495 00:40:15,519 --> 00:40:22,440 a responsive kind of group to some of these new policy ideas which are organized 496 00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:27,800 really to reflect what is now glaringly obvious about the Republican base. And I 497 00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:30,599 know you had some of these realizations earlier than a lot of people working on 498 00:40:30,679 --> 00:40:36,280 the twenty twelve Romney campaign and looking into domestic policy from that vantage point, 499 00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:40,960 it's early in twenty twenty four. You're launching this in fact on Capitol Hill 500 00:40:42,039 --> 00:40:45,239 later this month, with you know, the handful of a really strong handful 501 00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:51,559 of members of Congress who have been responsive to these ideas, to these new 502 00:40:51,639 --> 00:40:55,679 ways of thinking about things. Do you sense that the Republican primary field is 503 00:40:57,119 --> 00:41:00,320 moving in that direction? Do you sense, and let me just to ask 504 00:41:00,559 --> 00:41:05,679 about one particular candidate, that Donald Trump is moving in that direction? Well, 505 00:41:05,679 --> 00:41:09,119 you know, Donald Trump is probably the one who's been furthest in that 506 00:41:09,159 --> 00:41:14,559 direction already on a lot of these economic questions. I mean, I think 507 00:41:14,639 --> 00:41:17,239 one thing that that was he's a big Michael Lynd fan. Everybody knows that 508 00:41:19,639 --> 00:41:23,440 he's you know, if you think about what he represented in the twenty sixteen 509 00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:29,480 primary compared to all those other candidates, Um you know he was. He 510 00:41:29,599 --> 00:41:32,760 was really the one who was at least willing to challenge a lot of these 511 00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:37,880 orthodoxies that the old Right had had sort of hammered home for so long. 512 00:41:38,159 --> 00:41:43,039 And um, you know, I think you when we were talking about financialization, 513 00:41:43,039 --> 00:41:45,719 you sort of said, you know, one thing is just complaining about 514 00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:50,239 it, that it's another to actually do something about it, which which is 515 00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:54,440 certainly true from a governing perspective, but in politics, an awful lot of 516 00:41:54,440 --> 00:42:00,800 it is is talking about the problems and what problems somebody chooses to emphas size 517 00:42:00,159 --> 00:42:05,480 and so, you know, having a willingness to look at what's going on 518 00:42:05,559 --> 00:42:08,159 in America today, you know, whether you're talking about twenty sixteen or now 519 00:42:08,199 --> 00:42:14,039 in twenty twenty three, and say, you know, the real problems here 520 00:42:14,039 --> 00:42:22,039 are things like inequality, like low wage labor, like globalization, like um, 521 00:42:22,159 --> 00:42:27,400 you know, a totally broken immigration system, like financialization. These talking 522 00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:34,199 about that set of things is a totally different, uh message and steat of 523 00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:38,079 commitments to make to voters as opposed to the old right model of like well, 524 00:42:38,079 --> 00:42:43,159 I'll tell you what the real problems in America are is like too much 525 00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:49,920 you know, regulatory uncertainty, for job creators, UM and and and so 526 00:42:50,559 --> 00:42:53,719 you know Trump, Trump was there first, and I think in this field, 527 00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:59,000 you know, he's obviously not talking about a lot of policy at this 528 00:42:59,159 --> 00:43:02,159 at the moment, but it's it's safe to say that relatively speaking, he 529 00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:07,079 will be further to this side. I think the really interesting question, as 530 00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,599 as as you pose it, is what's what's going on with everybody else? 531 00:43:13,039 --> 00:43:17,480 And you know, one thing that that's interesting to look at is there really 532 00:43:17,639 --> 00:43:23,519 is now this different way of of approaching economic policy what we could at American 533 00:43:23,559 --> 00:43:30,679 Compass called conservative economics, that that rejects the sort of libertarian dogmas of the 534 00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:34,480 old right and says there there is a new way to talk about this stuff 535 00:43:34,599 --> 00:43:38,679 and think about it and and address it. And you know, so a 536 00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:44,079 lot of the project of this whole rebuilding American capitalism project, between all the 537 00:43:44,119 --> 00:43:47,679 policy proposals, you know, you've been mentioning along the way, that we 538 00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:53,159 have a whole host of outside experts who we asked to write commentaries for different 539 00:43:53,159 --> 00:43:57,599 pieces of it. I think we have about two dozen different folks from from 540 00:43:57,639 --> 00:44:01,760 all over the right of center, um, who are are sort of contributing 541 00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:07,079 their thoughts. And I think it reflects just the breadth of of UM folks 542 00:44:07,119 --> 00:44:12,079 doing work on these kinds of issues now. And then, like you said, 543 00:44:12,079 --> 00:44:15,480 well, we'll have a really great set of UM of elected leaders coming 544 00:44:15,519 --> 00:44:20,239 to participate in the launch event. And you know Senator Rubio, Senator Cotton, 545 00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:25,239 Senator Vance, Senator Young. UM folks like this I think are at 546 00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:30,440 the leading edge on these issues. The primary field. I think it's harder 547 00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:35,199 to say at this point where they'll be there are there are clearly some who 548 00:44:35,199 --> 00:44:40,719 are are not there. Nikki Haley is in the field and determined to show 549 00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:45,239 what would happen if you sort of you know, had a time machine and 550 00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:49,519 could grab a you know, I don't even know if we fair to call 551 00:44:49,599 --> 00:44:52,320 her from ten years ago, it might be more like a nineteen eighty six 552 00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:59,440 Republican U but not even I mean, it's worse than that. Well that's 553 00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:01,039 fair. And as I like, you know, Reagan actually had a far 554 00:45:01,119 --> 00:45:07,920 more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of this stuff than she seems to UM. But 555 00:45:07,079 --> 00:45:12,920 so so you know, there you have that lane UM and and then I 556 00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:15,440 think in between there there are going to be a bunch of candidates who are 557 00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:22,119 really sort of trying to figure it out as they go. Um And, 558 00:45:22,559 --> 00:45:25,199 like you said, you have a you have a base of voters that that 559 00:45:25,519 --> 00:45:31,800 does not want to hear uh frankly for what what Nicky Haley is saying. 560 00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:37,280 Where I feel bad now we're using Nicky Haley as as the stand in for 561 00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:39,360 for a whole side of the right of center. But she's a she's a 562 00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:45,679 very effective one. So um And. But but then there are also a 563 00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:51,280 lot of folks who I think obviously look at at what Donald Trump represents for 564 00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:52,719 the party and says, well, that's that's not quite what we want to 565 00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:59,599 run back again either. Uh and and so I think it's gonna be really 566 00:45:59,639 --> 00:46:05,480 interesting to see who chooses to try to fill the area in between those those 567 00:46:05,519 --> 00:46:08,519 two poles in a sense in different ways. And the work we're doing is 568 00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:14,280 intended to sort of provide the off the shelf material that says, you know, 569 00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:19,159 most of a primary isn't wonky economic policy, but you do have to 570 00:46:19,199 --> 00:46:22,360 have a theory of the case and a worldview. And we think this is 571 00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:29,719 the one that is it is going to be where conservatism heads in the medium 572 00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:32,239 term. And we'd love to love to see folks starting as soon as possible, 573 00:46:34,159 --> 00:46:37,159 I lied, and now I have one more quick question. It could 574 00:46:37,159 --> 00:46:39,920 be like subject for an entire podcast in them itself. But I think if 575 00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:43,960 I'm not mistaken, correct me, if I am, would you were quoted 576 00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:45,400 in the New York Times, New York or New York Magazine, one of 577 00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:51,480 the New York Things saying that conservatives seem to perhaps be on the verge of 578 00:46:51,679 --> 00:46:55,400 rethinking citizens united. And as we're having this conversation, that's in the back 579 00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:59,920 of my mind because so much of this is difficult, especially with the Prime 580 00:47:00,079 --> 00:47:04,360 Mary Um you know, ahead of us right now, to imagine, you 581 00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:07,840 know, even if in their heart of hearts you can sit down and explain 582 00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:13,920 to Nicky Haley what's going on with bud Light and Target and break numbers down 583 00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:16,320 and all of that, even if they wanted to, uh, the sort 584 00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:22,519 of financial winds political winds are blowing in a different direction from where their bases. 585 00:47:22,519 --> 00:47:25,400 Is that Am I remembering that corrictly correctly? Is that is that an 586 00:47:25,519 --> 00:47:30,800 or in cast quote? It is now and now now I'm trying to remember 587 00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:37,239 where it was also so New York, so you know, or or regardless 588 00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:44,079 the I think it's a it's a really important point because um it it again. 589 00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:46,159 You know, in some respects, you could see it as just a 590 00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:52,480 sort of esg or woke capital related issue, right like, oh, conservatives 591 00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:55,760 don't like what corporations are saying right now, so now you know, they're 592 00:47:55,760 --> 00:48:00,400 going to rethink whether corporations should be allowed to say it. But in my 593 00:48:00,519 --> 00:48:06,079 mind it is much closer to one of these sort of core issues about capitalism 594 00:48:06,519 --> 00:48:12,039 and reflective of the way that really for the last ten or fifteen years, 595 00:48:12,119 --> 00:48:17,079 conservatives are taking note of the way that various assumptions that that we were taught 596 00:48:17,119 --> 00:48:22,480 that we could just make about how great everything would always work out in the 597 00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:29,480 free market doesn't necessarily hold. And one of those is it's it's not specifically 598 00:48:29,519 --> 00:48:31,880 the problem that, well, what if a corporation, you know, takes 599 00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:37,840 a position on Pride month that you don't like. It's it's a much broader 600 00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:43,719 question about how democracy works. And you know, I think democracy and capitalism 601 00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:51,360 are these sort of two parallel ideas that that conservatives rightly cherish and are you 602 00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:55,239 know, should recognize, and our rocket recognizing are are really hard. And 603 00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:59,960 they take the right set of rules and they take the right set of institutions. 604 00:49:00,079 --> 00:49:05,960 Uh. And and so when it comes to the marketplace of ideas or 605 00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:13,159 the political sphere, um, you know, suggesting that that that corporations are 606 00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:20,079 sort of going to play in an effective and constructive role, UM doesn't doesn't 607 00:49:20,119 --> 00:49:23,000 necessarily seem true. And now there are a lot of reasons that that conservatives 608 00:49:23,039 --> 00:49:29,000 did like Citizens United. It's a fascinating and kind of really complicated legal question, 609 00:49:29,639 --> 00:49:34,000 but I think it's all of a piece of the way that that um 610 00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:37,800 that a lot of people on the right are waking up to the reality that 611 00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:43,840 if if we want to have America working well, um, we are going 612 00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:46,840 to have to have some rules. Yeah, it was I remember seeing that 613 00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:52,119 quote and it was, um very affirming to borrow some language from the left 614 00:49:52,159 --> 00:49:54,760 because I've been thinking something similar and I was like, well, if Orne 615 00:49:54,880 --> 00:50:00,079 thinks it, then it must be okay, or it must just be socialism. 616 00:50:00,159 --> 00:50:04,280 It's somewhere on the road to socialism. I don't know how far. 617 00:50:05,599 --> 00:50:07,360 Well. You should make sure to take a look at this handbook. It 618 00:50:07,559 --> 00:50:13,639 is so fascinating, there's so much in it or and people can find that 619 00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:17,679 on the American Compass website. Yes, American Compass dot Org. I'm sure 620 00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:21,239 there will be a big button right in the middle. There you go. 621 00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:25,360 It's called Rebuilding American Capitalism, a handbook for conservative policymakers. Or in casts, 622 00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:30,639 the executive director of American Compass, the author of Once and Future Worker, 623 00:50:30,079 --> 00:50:34,519 or we appreciate you stopping by, Emily, Thank you so much. 624 00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:37,159 You've been listening to another edition of The Federalist for radio hour. I'm Emi 625 00:50:37,199 --> 00:50:40,840 Logicianski culture editor here the Federalist. We will be Baxton with more. Until 626 00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:44,559 then, Members of Freedom and anxious for the Front