Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
We are all New Deal socialists now
We are all New Deal socialists now
Nov 10, 2024 3:45 PM

President Trump is known for public unveiling his inner thoughts on Twitter. But one of the most ments he’s ever made came recently in a private discussion with lawmakers about trade policy.

According to Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., when senators visited the White Housethey told the president what farmers want is access to markets, not a payment from government. To this Trump replied, “I’m surprised, I’ve never heard of anybody who didn’t want a payment from government.”

Unfortunately, the president is probably right. In 1888, the British Liberal leader Sir William Harcourt declared, “We are all socialists now.” A similar claim could be made in America in 2018: We are all New Deal socialists now.

Currently, there are peting models of New Deal socialism in the U.S. The first is the democratic socialism represented by Bernie Sanders. The second type is the economic nationalism represented by Trump.

Both sides are attempting to be the heir of Franklin Roosevelt’s welfare state nationalism. Sanders is more overt about the connection. “Let me define for you, simply and straightforwardly, what democratic socialism means to me,” said Sanders in 2015. “It builds on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he fought for guaranteed economic rights for all Americans.” But many of Trump’s economic policies are similar aligned with FDR vision of “economic rights.” Trump even admitted there was one area where he was aligned with Sanders: “We have one issue that’s very similar, and that’s trade,” Trump said in 2016. “He and I are similar in trade.”

Sanders and Trump—and their supporters—share much more mon, though, than just protectionist trade policy. Each side is collectivist and seeks to use the power of the federal government to advance the economic interest of the group over the individual. And when the individual is economically harmed by these protectionist policies, the federal will “protect” them by giving them “payment from government” (i.e., the profits earned by other Americans and collected by the government for redistribution).

This is why both Sanders and Trump, like FDR, want a federal government that is big enough and strong enough to control the economy. “Franklin Roosevelt’s nationalism was, first, a doctrine of federal centralization,” says Samuel H. Beer. “The principle of federal activism, which some have seen as the principal dividing line in American politics since the 1930s, was introduced by the New Deal.”

New Deal socialist believe free markets and free individuals are secondary to the national economic interest identified by the government. The individual is permitted to act only if it is in the interest of the collective. As Senator Elizabeth Warren has said, “We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well-used. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to munity.”

Commenting on Warren’s remark, Kevin Williamson says,

The words “permit it” speak to the divide between traditional conservatives on the classical-liberal model and the (New) New Nationalists on the Roosevelt-Obama-Trump model. This permission mentality touches every aspect of nationalist economic thinking, which is how such meaningless bookkeeping exercises as the calculation of trade deficits and e e to be understood as pressing national concerns. Putting markets under economic discipline is where progressivism, socialism, fascism, and nationalism all intersect, each of those ideas being based on the superstition that the nation has interests distinct from those of the people pose the nation.

The reason Christians should reject New Deal socialism—and ponent parts socialism and nationalism—is because it makes an idol of national economic concerns. Under New Deal socialism we are no longer stewards of God’s resources, vice-regents of God’s creation called to fulfill the cultural mandate (Genesis 1:28). Instead, we are made stewards of the national economic interest, permitted to engage in economic activity with the permission of the national government, and subordinating the interest of real people to the interest of an abstract “nation.”

This is a form of subjugation that no free people should be expected to endure. But because we are all New Deal socialists now, we’re willing to trade our freedoms in exchange for, as our president says, “payment from government.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Rev. Sirico: What I learned from Michael Novak
Today is the first anniversary of the death of Michael Novak. The theologian, scholar, and writer was one of the most influential Catholic thinkers of his generation, and an indefatigable champion of free enterprise, democracy, and liberty. During his life Novak was a prolific writer. In addition to being the author or editor of more than 50 books, he wrote a syndicated column that was nominated for a Pulitzer. He was also a teacher (he taught at Harvard, Stanford, SUNY...
How marginal utility affects consumer choice
Note: This is post #69 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. When we buy a good or make a decision about how to use our time, we do so because we believe we are getting some sort of value from our choice, such as a sense of happiness or satisfaction. Economists call this “utility.” In this video by Marginal Revolution University, Joana Girante discusses the increase in the value from buying an additional unit of a good or...
Riding the net neutrality see-saw
This week, I was one of menters consulted in Nicholas Wolfram Smith’s article “FCC Repeal of Net Neutrality Leads to Lively Fight” for the National Catholic Register. I think Smith did a fine job conveying my primary concern: But according to Dylan Pahman, a researcher and managing editor of Acton Institute’s Journal of Markets & Morality, one of the problems with the 2015 net neutrality regulations was that it gave the government far too much regulatory power over ISPs. At...
The Oxfam scandal is about more than sex
Oxfam released its internal report on the Haiti scandal Monday, exposing that the controversy enveloping the agency was deeper and more expansive than previously known. In addition to the details already made public, the report states that allegations of fraud, negligence, sexual harassment, nepotism, and accessing pornography on an puter led to four firings and three resignations. The figure at the center of the controversy, Haitian country director Roland van Hauwermeiren, was allowed to make a “phased and dignified exit,”...
Oxfam’s ‘little gods’ exploit the poor
In a tragic irony, Oxfam has demonstrated the injustice of a certain kind of inequality. The international charity, which is known for its annual report on e inequality, is mired in scandal involving sexual coercion by its employees, possible pedophilia, and lying to a government agency in order to maintain taxpayer funding. While responding to the 2010 Haitian earthquake, relief workers engaged prostitutes in living quarters furnished by Oxfam, paid for with charitable donations (and tax dollars). Some have alleged...
How entrepreneurship transforms a village
As we were walking down the street of a small village within Barahona in the Dominican Republic, we met a woman living in a humble home with her family. She had constructed a metal box out of scraps found discarded near her village, Algodon. On top of the box, she had a fire burning, and inside there was a large pan of yucca bread baking. It smelled delicious. This is precisely the type of person that the Acton Institute Poverty...
Around the Old World-Sea
Later today we’re having a book launch discussion about the latest volume in the Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology, On Islam. This book is a selection from a travel narrative Kuyper published after he voyaged around the Mediterranean Sea in 1905-1906. For those who are unable to join us in Grand Rapids, the event will be available via a live stream and will also be archived for viewing later. For those interested in learning more about Kuyper’s trip,...
Removing the scales: Peter Boettke on the public purpose of economics
Whenever a new economic policy is proposed or introduced, we are immediately confronted by a wave of pundits and pontificators, each offering their own spin on its real-world implications. Far too often, however, such analysis gives way to a flurry of passions: emotional, ideological, and otherwise. Which begs the question: What is the public purpose of the economist? According to economist Peter Boettke, it has to do with the illumination of truth, not only about market processes, but political processes,...
Radio Free Acton: Greg Forster on the legacy of Whittaker Chambers, Econ Quiz on income inequality, Upstream on Ursula K. Le Guin
On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Paul Bonicelli, director of programs and education at Acton, and Trey Dimsdale, director of program outreach at Acton, speak with Greg Forster, director of the Oikonomia Network and visiting assistant professor of faith and culture at Trinity International University, on the legacy and modern relevance of Whittaker Chambers and his landmark book,Witness. Then, Dave Hebert, professor of economics at Aquinas college, joins us on the Econ Quiz segment to talkabout e inequality. Finally,...
Video: Book Discussion on Kuyper and Islam
We’ve got video available of last week’s book launch discussion about Abraham Kuyper’s travels around the Mediterranean Sea. A portion of his travel record has been published as On Islam as part of the Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology. James Bratt and Doug Howard, both of Calvin College and who edited the volume, were joined by the translator Jan van Vliet of Dordt College for a discussion which I moderated. Here’s the panel discussion: And the audience Q&A:...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2024 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved