Soviet America? And more from this week...
From Understanding America, for better understanding America
Each Friday, I’ll be sending out a rundown of what I found most interesting during the week and why. We’ll play around with the format over time, so your comments are welcome. Before jumping in, though, I do hope you’ll take a look at my introductory post from Tuesday if you have not done so already: Welcome to Understanding America.
ONE THING TO READ
I highly recommend diving into the “Soviet America” debate started by Niall Ferguson’s essay in The Free Press, We Are All Soviets Now, with replies from Jonah Goldberg at The Dispatch, Cathy Young at The Bulwark, and Noah Smith at Noahpinion, and Ferguson’s rebuttal on Twitter and Helen Andrews at the American Conservative arguing that Ferguson didn’t go far enough.
The exchange is interesting in the specifics—you’ll learn a lot about the many ways things look like they’re going well in America and the many ways they seem to be going poorly—but more so, I think, in the perfection of the form that so many debates take these days over the American condition. The disagreement is not about any particular data point, but rather about which ones matter.
Ferguson highlights the many indicia of national decay by which the United States looks more like the late-era Soviet Union than the liberal democratic superpower that defeated it. But is the fact of millions of immigrants crossing illegally into our country in search of work, cheered on by the corporate class and the governing party in defiance of the obvious wishes of most citizens, a sign of an especially robust economy or a truly broken polity? And which economy is more robust, anyway: one that sees higher GDP growth because immigrants are streaming so quickly over the border, or one that sees higher wage growth because labor markets are tight?
It is always helpful if people on both sides of these debates describe their measuring sticks clearly. If your definition of success is a well-functioning republic in which common citizens can build decent lives and participate fully in their communities, you will find Ferguson’s critique compelling. If success is large inflows of labor, capital, and goods fueling high levels of GDP growth, debt, and consumption, then you’ll likely side with Goldberg. Though, perhaps tellingly, his effort to applaud the “staggering wealth of the American consumer” provides a link to a table of GDP per capita, which says little about wealth or the typical consumer.
In fact, from 1989–2019, the total wealth in the bottom 50% of U.S. households fell by $1.5 trillion, while total wealth among the top 10% rose by $28.6 trillion. I know which of those two numbers Ferguson would focus on and which Goldberg would highlight; and I’m pretty sure I know which is more important to the health of nations.
THIS WEEK AT AMERICAN COMPASS
The Compass Point is from yours truly, on why American electric vehicle policy is failing and how to fix it: The Electric Slide.
Republicans face their own conundrum, as they reorient their economic agenda around confronting China, recovering from globalization, and reindustrializing the domestic economy. A vital technology falling under Chinese control would seem the perfect candidate for aggressive protection and investment, but in this instance, the technology is in focus predominantly for its carbon footprint, rather than its economic value, and thus is deeply unpopular with Republican voters. Why bother protecting and promoting domestic EVs that carmakers lose money producing and consumers don’t want to buy? While simply barring Chinese imports, eliminating EV mandates, and letting the domestic market proceed on its own has short-term appeal, EVs may well be the technology of the future—most automakers think they are. If that proves right, granting the Chinese and their increasingly subservient European partners a decades-long head start would be a disaster in the long run.
ALSO ON THE COMMONS
Mark DiPlacido points out the hypocrisy in the Old Right’s tendency to minimize trends in inequality by using income data post-taxes-and-transfers while simultaneously lamenting the existence of those taxes and transfers.
Aaron Renn looks at the success of Red States and the problems with the narrative that tax cuts are their secret sauce.
And, on the American Compass Podcast this week, Batya Ungar-Sargon joined me for a discussion of her fantastic new book, Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women, and her experiences traveling the country to interview Americans for it.
WHAT ELSE SHOULD YOU BE READING?
Speaking of Batya, she also had a great piece in Compact magazine this week, on the “disconnect between national union leadership, much of which is culled from the ‘revolving door of Democratic operatives in Washington,’ as one longtime union leader once put it to me, and rank-and-file members, who tend to be more socially conservative.”
In the American Conservative, Senator Tommy Tuberville describes what he sees as the problems with the CHIPS Act implementation and his proposals to fix it. His critique of specific Biden administration missteps is quite fair, but I don’t find persuasive his argument that CHIPS is failing as a result.
“These policies, and subsequent funding eligibility requirements, have slowed implementation of the bill to a near halt,” he writes, linking to three delays in particular. But none of those delays have anything to do with the red tape and mandates he laments. He is upset that “the Biden administration recently announced they would use some of the funding to produce semiconductors in Kenya,” but that grant is for $1 million (with an M) out of a $280 billion bill.
For a better assessment of how CHIPS implementation is going, read the recent rundown by American Compass policy director Chris Griswold, Growing Pains, or AEI senior fellow Chris Miller’s column in the Financial Times, The Chips Act Has Been Surprisingly Successful So Far. Regardless, it is encouraging to see Republican senators like Tuberville enthusiastic about the need for industrial policy and focused on how conservatives can do it better.
And, to wrap things up, two really interesting pieces on the labor market.
In the Wall Street Journal, a profile of Monique Pizano, a 27-year-old from Ontario, California, who runs a Raising Cane’s.
In the Washington Post, an op-ed by Darnell Epps, who recently completed at joint degree at Yale Law School and Lincoln Technical Institute.
Enjoy the weekend!
Welcome to the Substack, comrade. The US is now a mix of the Soviets and CCP. If you are accused of wrongthink by MSM, you will be subjected to struggle sessions like Uri Berliner at NPR: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/uri-berliner-npr-ceo-redguard-struggle-session