What binds globalism and identity politics together is the judgment that national sovereignty is not the final word on how to order collective life. This judgment against national sovereignty—let us state the matter boldly—was the animating principle of the post-1989 world order, an order that is now collapsing before our eyes. Citizens who came of age after 1989 scarcely know how daring this project has been and, thanks to the American university, can scarcely conceive of any alternative to it. The post-1989 world order, however, is not fixed and immutable. It is, moreover, a rather bold historical experiment.
These are from a new journal called American Affairs. Pointer from Tyler Cowen. I will put some more quotes, from this and other articles, below the fold.
A few random thoughts from me:
1. What is Michael Lind doing on the masthead? I do not think of him as a natural Trump supporter. Of course, the mission statement for the journal does not say anything about Mr. Trump. It says, for example
We seek to provide a forum for the discussion of new policies that are outside of the conventional dogmas, and a platform for new voices distinguished by originality, experience, and achievement rather than the compromised credentials of careerist institutions.
2. We have National Affairs (Yuval Levin’s journal) and now American Affairs. What’s next? Playoffs? A college draft?
3. I find it easier to be anti-anti-Trump than to be pro-Trump. Left-wing campus activism repels me. The Democratic Party’s identity politics repels me. The outrage-manufacturing machine that is the Washington Post front page repels me. The arrogance of those in power regarding ordinary citizens repels me, although I do not think that American’s citizenry is blameless when it comes to the health care mess, for example.
4. I think that most of the policy ideas to help working-class Americans that are floating around these days are beside the point. I feel that way about trade restriction, immigration restriction, minimum wage increases, support for unions, education–pretty much every hobby horse, left and right.
I think that deregulation could make a positive difference, although the difference might be small. That is an area where there is some alignment between President Trump’s agenda and the needs of working-class Americans.
However, if it were up to me, I would focus on reducing the implicit taxes on labor demand and labor supply.
a. Get rid of “employer-provided” health insurance, which is an employment tax on healthy workers to pay for health care costs of workers with chronic illnesses, and instead provide support for the chronically ill with government funds. On health care policy in general, I continue to prefer the approaches that I suggested a decade ago in Crisis of Abundance to the Obamacare and ObamacareLite choices currently in play.
b. Reduce or eliminate the payroll tax.
c. Substitute a basic income grant for means-tested programs, including food stamps and Medicaid. However, reduce overall spending on poverty programs. That probably means setting the BIG below the level required to sustain a household. Leave it to charities and local governments to find the households that need and deserve more assistance than a low BIG can provide.
d. Fund (a) and (b) with a tax on consumer spending.
5. On foreign policy, if Trumpism means nothing more and nothing less than treating governments that work with us better than governments that work against us, then I am on board.