Whose Standards Are Too High?

In my eyes, every election is a trainwreck. Two proudly irrational tribes rally behind two self-congratulatory demagogic mediocrities as if they were the Second Coming. Listening to any “serious” candidate speak is torture. It’s like sitting in on the class presentations of C students, knowing that one of these C students will, on the basis of their half-baked words, become the most powerful person on Earth. What a disgraceful system.

You can tell me “One of these candidates must be the lesser evil” from dawn to dusk. But I just can’t stop thinking, “They all make my flesh crawl — and if you don’t feel the same way, there is something very wrong with you.”

Yet there is a simple and obvious reply to my extreme negativity: “Bryan, your standards are too high.” Critics could elaborate as follows:

• The modern United States is one of the best times and places to live in all of human history, so the alleged “demagogues” who rule it can’t be that bad.

• The same holds for both of the alleged “proudly irrational tribes” who share power in this country. Objectively speaking, both tribes have a lot to be proud about. Despite their mutual animosity, the fruit of their power-sharing is: an amazingly great country to live in.

• The candidates are much smarter and wiser than they sound. Judging their cognition from their public statements is silly. Everyone who speaks to mass audiences dumbs down their rhetoric. Look at what they actually do with their power, not how they describe their intentions.

• The candidates probably aren’t smart enough to get econ Ph.D.s from Princeton, or thoughtful enough to impress professors at a GMU econ lunch. But that just proves that neither of these egghead qualifications matters in the real world.

• Human beings enjoy spectacles, but no spectacle pleases everyone. The most observers enjoy election season, just as they enjoy football season. Why must you yuck their yums?

• Most societies throughout history have been dictatorships. Show some gratitude that we’re not one of them.

If democracy and dictatorship were the only two ways to organize society, I’d reluctantly grant the merit of many of the preceding criticisms. But in point of fact, there is a third alternative — an alternative that politicians vaguely yet incessantly acknowledge: the free market. The very system that almost all politicians have to attack to justify all the government regulation and government spending that they propose.

Immanuel Kant famously stated, “I have found it necessary to deny reason in order to make room for faith.” The subtext of virtually every political speech is, “I have found it necessary to deny the free market in order to make room for government.” A handful of archetypal examples:

• On the free market, businesses sometimes get a monopoly… so government should restore competition.

• On the free market, consumers sometimes have imperfect information… so government should make sure they’re not misled.

• On the free market, developers often fail to consider the harms they inflict on surrounding homeowners… so government shouldn’t allow them to build without proper permits.

• On the free market, people rarely give large amounts of charity to strangers… so government should force them to help the poor.

• On the free market, employers sometimes fail to hire the best worker for the job… so government should ban and punish employment discrimination.

Where am I going with this? Here: Before you claim that my standards for voters and politicians are too high, you should seriously consider the possibility that voters’ and politicians’ standards for the free market are too high. Prior to any call for government intervention, people should contemplate all of the following:

• No country approximates a free market, but almost all rich countries have a long history of relatively free-market policies.

• In contrast, dozens of countries have approximated full socialism. All of these countries have been abject disasters for human well-being. To quote an American politician in a rare moment of clarity, “We have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in.”

• Looking at the very freest economies in the world, there is little sign that they have taken a good idea too far. As far as we can see, the freer the economy, the better.

• People around the world attack the United States for having smaller government than Europe, yet people around the world also name the U.S. as the country they would most like to migrate to.

• “Monopolies” rarely arise on the free market by chance. Firms obtain monopolies by being — and staying — the best at pleasing their customers. When they stop being the best, they quickly stop being monopolies. Often, they stop existing entirely.

• One of the main functions of actual free markets is giving consumers enough information to make them comfortable. A good reputation is the foundation of every successful business. Thanks to the internet, word of mouth now works better than ever. Which explains the prevalence of 100% money-back guarantees — firms don’t want anyone talking bad about them.

• Developers cause some problems for surrounding homeowners — traffic, parking, and noise for starters. But they also provide notable benefits for surrounding homeowners — an array of social, shopping, job, and cultural opportunities. The fact that people pay large upcharges for density proves that the package of (all the good + all the bad) that development brings is highly positive.

• People rarely give large amounts of charity to strangers. But they also often refuse to give large amounts of charity to their parents, adult children, and siblings. When you hear about such refusals, you probably don’t reflexively take the side of the would-be recipient. Maybe the refuser has a good reason to say, “I’ve done more than enough for my brother.” Why then should we reflexively side against taxpayers who don’t want to fund redistribution to strangers?

• Illegal immigrants are one of the least-liked groups in the country, yet most people still fear that employers will hire them. Why? Because employers have a strong incentive to set personal prejudice aside and hire the best person for the job. Once you acknowledge this truism, how can you take the ongoing moral panic about race and sex discrimination seriously? If you’re paying attention, the real story is that government requires discrimination against whites, Asians, and males.

You needn’t agree with all of these bullet points. As soon as you grant that I’m making some plausible observations, politicians and voters suddenly look bad in a new way. While the free market isn’t perfect, their standards are too high. Instead of piling on even more regulation and government spending, they should be musing, “Laissez-faire seems pretty good. Maybe we should just live with it.”

If this thought ever becomes common, I promise that — after fainting from shock — I will give credit where credit is due. I’ll even declare, “Wow, no true demagogic mediocrity would speak this way. I guess I judged you too harshly.”

Yet until then, I am standing my ground. Politicians and voters hold the free market to an unfairly high standard.

I, in contrast, hold politicians and voters to an eminently reasonable standard: Don’t advocate government action until you credibly show that, despite all the free market’s merits, you know how to do better.