Komrade Kamala's price controls are just more mercantislim
Republicans campaign like capitalists, Democrats like socialists. But all Americans ever get is mercantilism.
“In her speech yesterday, Kamala went full Communist,” said Donald Trump, referring to Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris’ promise to impose price controls on groceries under certain circumstances. And while self-described communist or socialist governments have indeed used them in the past, so have U.S. presidents, including virulent anti-communist Richard Nixon.
Price controls are always bad but they’re not necessarily communist. In a true communist society, there are no real market prices to control. That was one of the reasons the Soviet Union eventually collapsed. It had a “calculation problem” as the Austrian economists would say.
Harris may indeed have communist impulses but if she wins the election, Americans don’t realistically have to worry about communism. In fact, regardless of which candidate wins, Americans will get more of the same economic system that has plagued its economy for four hundred years: mercantilism.
Donald Trump may sound more like the mercantilists you read about in textbooks, with his insistence on high protective tariffs. But in reality, both major parties have been mercantilist since the dawn of the progressive era, the Republican party since its birth from the ashes of the Whigs in the 1850s. The only difference between the two has been the marketing.
Mercantilism itself, whether sold under the title “economic nationalism,” “progressivism,” or “industrial policy,” purports to help all members of the domestic market. It doesn’t. It doesn’t even benefit all producers at the expense of consumers. It benefits some producers at the expense of consumers and other producers. It benefits the politicians’ friends and donors at the expense of everyone else.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Tom Mullen Talks Freedom to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.