Do You Really Want to Make America Great Again?
The MAGA movement is based on concerns that the US has lost its leadership in several ways — economically, militarily, ethically, and morally, among others. First and foremost, an overwhelming majority of Americans in multiple polls, both conservative and liberal, express their concerns about the US economy. While we may be divided on how to best regain our economic edge, we appear united in our expectations.
Multiple theories and declarations have been offered by politicians, the media, and various experts as to what has caused the relative decline in American economic dominance over the past several decades. Some blame globalization and free trade, others cite the tax burden of social welfare, and some say excessive regulation has strangled corporate innovation. In fact, it is all of these things, and more. However, even without free trade, other nations have emerged as economic powerhouses. Asian countries, which lagged behind the US during the mid twentieth century, have trained and engaged millions of their own citizens in industrial development. Americans could not afford to simply boycott international goods to protect American interests. That would actually have been un-American because our capitalistic system is competition driven. Japanese cars, which seized market share over the past 50 years have not undercut American products on price, but by competing on quality, reliability, and attractive features and style, defying the superficial argument that low-cost labor enables other nations to compete unfairly by dumping cheap goods into the US economy.
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On the other hand, it is true that many American manufacturers have moved production offshore or across borders to take advantage of low-cost labor. Are such goods American if they’re manufactured elsewhere? The companies that make them still manage operations remotely from within the US, but with limited benefit to the US economy in the form of jobs and the recirculation of wages . Some of the profits ends up in the US, but not all because shareholders are global. Conservatives rightly claim that free trade in a world with such economic disparity drains our country of capital. Some progressive economists have argued against free trade for the same reasons. It’s not an easy debate. More clearly, if we want to overcome trade deficits, we Americans need to produce competitive goods and services. The engine of capitalism is innovation. Two essential goals of business are to deliver value to customers at the lowest possible cost while earning returns for shareholders. The divide in conservative vs progressive capitalistic economics begins with “market failures,” as economists say. That is, certain costs of production are absent from pricing and become social costs.
It was clear in the 1970s that pollution was an indisputable side effect of unchecked industrial growth. Beaches were closed due to high levels of toxic chemicals in the water, rivers actually caught fire, and air pollution blanketed major cities throughout the nation, causing symptoms ranging from eye irritation to asthma, and serious respiratory illnesses such as emphysema and lung cancer. The correlations between pollution and disease were dramatic and indisputable, just as for cigarette smoking. Back then conservatives led environmental policy, with Richard Nixon — the conservative’s conservative — establishing the Environmental Protection Agency, now vilified by Nixon’s Republican successors as regulatory overreach despite decades of successful reduction in air, water, and land contamination. Environmental regulation has driven innovation, as companies have been forced to clean up their emissions. Despite dire predictions, environmental regulation has not choked production. Instead it hatched the new emissions capture industry, with new jobs and a reduction in market failures as the cost of environmental damage became factored into production by investing in scrubbers. The emerging adoption of social and environmental performance does not replace basic capitalistic business principles.
Those who resist big change, like transitioning our energy supply from fossil fuels to electrification, say that whatever future difficulties we may encounter the free markets will deliver solutions. Maybe so. But markets are not entirely free, and one of the greatest market failures is myopia. Long-term thinking doesn’t produce short-term earnings. Only social processes, like informed government, can provide the foresight and economic support to set marathon mileposts. Like it or not we cannot solve every problem efficiently by waiting until the eleventh hour. Sometimes once the damage is done it’s too late to overcome the consequences. Look at the $20+ billion we’ve spent so far cleaning up 453 of the 1,789 toxic Superfund sites.
Making America great again does not mean protecting the status quo, by which I unapologetically mean special interests like fossil fuel companies. America is great when its economy is thriving on innovation, and an innovation is a response to a need or a problem. Ending slavery did not put an end to agriculture. New forms of mechanization and cultivation increase yields and lowered costs. Food and clothing are necessities, and innovators took advantage of the challenge. Denying problems will never lead to innovation. For those who say we can save legacy industries like coal, oil, and gas production with innovative emissions controls, I would say, “Show us.” That’s capitalism. The point is to solve problems, and in doing so to drive economic activity. In the absence of one type of solution, such as carbon capture, we must pursue other innovations, which is what we’ve done by slashing the cost of renewable energy to the point that it is more economical than burning dead dinosaurs (fossil fuels actually come primarily from deeply buried plant material, not animals). However, it’s a long complicated process to switch 100% of global energy to renewables, so a solution that makes fossil fuels safe for people and the environment would make someone, or several someones, very wealthy, and justifiably so. Until that happens, innovation follows the most direct path to progress. Those who want to protect incumbent industries while claiming that free markets will generate technical solutions to all future challenges are talking out of both sides of their mouths. A true capitalist doesn’t deny a problem like climate change — they look at it and say, “I bet there’s an opportunity in there.” Some of my fellow liberals may find opportunism abhorrent, but that impulse to turn adversity to advantage is what drives progress, including the kind of progress we all need and desire. I recommend we direct our outrage at the infusion of our tax dollars as life support for mega-corporations that are either obsolete or incapable of adaptation.
Protecting declining industries with anti-capitalistic, public subsidies based on technological hope or wishful thinking will only leave the door open for brilliant minds and able hands in other nations to leapfrog us, and will finish Americans’ transformation from producers to customers. Bring on the change. Bring on the ingenuity. Stop suffocating America’s superpowers with limited vocational training, underfunded education, and prohibitively expensive college tuition. Don’t our kids deserve opportunities to keep improving their lives and the lives of others? Make America great again by accepting the challenges we face and by training, encouraging, and incentivizing Americans to take them on.
