Symposium: More Historical Populism, Fewer Bluebloods

This article is in response to “It’s Time for Free-Market Populism” and is part of the symposium on What’s Wrong with Conservatism and How Do We Make It Right?

Timothy Carney’s “free-market oopulism” has something for everyone. Ousting the crony capitalists and exposing the extent to which elite progressives keep the cronies in power is a message that appeals on both a raw and intellectual level. Mitt Romney was portrayed as the ultimate New England blueblood. But, these days, the New England bluebloods are sticking Elizabeth Warren bumper stickers to the back of their Priuses.

Conservatives, so far, have failed to tap into blue-collar resentment of a country that has become increasingly stratified by wealth and connections. And they’ve also failed to revive the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian-styled populism that offer Carney’s message a rich historical tradition. Conservatives should be taking the academic study of Public Choice Economics—the “politics without romance” for which James Buchanan won the Nobel Prize—and pitching it to everyday folks. By and large, conservatives avoid discussing income inequality out of fear that it sounds like class warfare. But what if the classes are warring because progressives have shut certain groups out of the free market?

For instance, rather than reforming healthcare through more market competition to bring down prices, ObamaCare’s takeover forces more Black and Hispanics into Medicaid. And contrary to the now-forgotten ads that said the Green Economy would create 5 million middle-class jobs, government energy subsidies did little more than inflate the net worth of men like Al Gore.

Occupy Wall Street’s hooligans fashioned themselves as old-fashioned class warriors. But one of their most-circulated demands was student loan forgiveness for graduates with elite liberal arts degrees. The free-market populist would step in to say that, no, working class Americans, many of whom never had the opportunity to attend college, should not be footing the bill.

Or take the “living wage” regulations that have become such popular campaigns among cloistered College students and upper-income Washington DC residents.  Mandates for pay increases are actually mandates for the government to increase unemployment among the poor. The latest showdown to prevent Walmart from opening stores in the capital city (The so-called Larger Retailer Accountability Act) ignored the fact that it’s predominately low-income shoppers who rely on Walmart for affordable goods and access to commodities like televisions, sports equipment, etc. that would otherwise remain out of their price range.

It’s up to the free-market populist to point out these facts—to both the poor and working classes who suffer from these misguided policies and the rich who perpetuate this kind of shoddy legislation.