Have Republicans Abandoned Free Markets?

Reason's Emma Camp attended the Republican National Convention to ask attendees if they still believe in the power of free markets.

Emma Camp | 7.22.2024 10:40 AM

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After the first night of the Republican National Convention, when Teamsters President Sean O'Brien illustrated that the Republican Party may be morphing into the party of unionized working-class Americans, Reason asked convention attendees whether they believed that the Republican party had given up on free markets. Watch now to hear what they had to say!

Photo credits: Rod Lamkey—CNP/Newscom; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom; Ron Sachs/CNP/AdMedia/SIPA/Newscom; Yichuan Cao/Sipa USA/Newscom; Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA/Newscom; Li Rui/Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Wu Xiaoling/Xinhua News Agency/Newscom

Music Credits: "Happy Hour," by Evert Z via Artlist; "Ima B Da Baddest," by Captain Joz via Artlist

Video Editor: Danielle Thompson
Camera: Justin Zuckerman

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The Mysterious Edwin Dunkel 8 months ago

There is no such thing as Free Markets.

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1. JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day) 8 months ago
  
  Can't be stated enough. Allowing violations of markets from other countries is not free market. In fact a real free market needs recognition of said violations.
  
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2. Zeb 8 months ago
  
  It's a theoretical ideal. Large groups of humans will probably never let it happen.
  
  I don't care much for the argument that since we aren't totally free, we should have even more rules that make us less free, though.
  
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  1. Social Justice is neither 8 months ago
    
    But the dishonest representations of the actors and their goals by left-wing activists like Emma doesn't help. We live in reality, not some theoretical construct and sometimes the path back to liberty isn't as tidy as ideologues require. At this point it's all trade-offs but you cannot make reasonable decisions if your baseline information is all lies.
    
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    1. sarcasmic 8 months ago
      
      Free trade is not left-wing, and those who support it are not left-wing activists.
      
      The left hates free trade.
      
      What you are watching here is the GOP taking a hard left turn on economics in real time.
      
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      1. charliehall 8 months ago
        
        Mussolini would love this!
        
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3. Spiritus Mundi 8 months ago
  
  Who rules bartertown?
  
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Earth-based Human Skeptic 8 months ago

Hey, Emma, ask uncle Charles if Koch Industries abandoned free markets.

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Quo Usque Tandem 8 months ago

If you took basis economics in college, you'd have learned that the US, as does every developed country in the world, adheres to a mixed economic system [to varying degrees]. Cuba and North Korea have a command economy. No modern country has a completely free market economy.

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1. Earth-based Human Skeptic 8 months ago
  
  And you would have learned that in the US the amount of meddling varies by domain and era. And maybe gotten some insights as to which US market components are more fucked up and why.
  
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2. mad.casual 8 months ago
  
  It is also a categorization error.
  
  That is, if I say "The US has free speech.", the reply "Where does the US keep its free speech?" is a category, or more fundamentally ontological, error.
  
  If the US is a 100% free market within its own borders and it engages in trade with a no-shit communist dictatorship, the global market that encompasses both nations is not a free one even if the free market economy trades "freely" with the communist dictatorship.
  
  The error, intentional or not, specifically obfuscates the idea the relative degrees of freedom in each country are of any consequence to the free market.
  
  Reason commits the error, confusing the words communicating the thing for the the thing itself, a lot.
  
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  1. MJBinAL 8 months ago
    
    Well said,
    
    The Republican party has traditionally been a conservative party based on the principles of the nation’s founding. These were imperfectly implemented but aspirationally represented in founding documents.
    
    The founding of this nation was based on Free Markets INTERNALLY as evidenced by open trade between states and lack of trade barriers between them and Mercantile Trade with other nations. In fact the primary source of funding for the Federal Government was originally import tariffs.
    
    For the economically literate, it is well understood that there is not now, nor has there ever been, “free trade” between nations. there can never be meaningful free trade between nations so long as they have independent currencies, any sort of central bank, or any effort to preserve self defense capability.
    
    The discussions here on “FREE TRADE” are usually at best infantile and at worst suicidal. The perfect example is our attempt to make China “play well with the other nations” by trading with them. (Another stupid brain fart by Henry Kissinger) The result is not “kumbaya around the international campfire” but a strengthened China with expansionist ambitions and a United States with hollowed out domestic manufacturing capacity.
    
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Dillinger 8 months ago

RNC was last week.

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sarcasmic 8 months ago

At least they can’t claim support for free markets is leftist, since the left has always opposed economic liberty.

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1. Quicktown Brix 8 months ago
  
  Just wait. The realignment is not complete.
  
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Well Adjusted Biden Guy 6/11 Banana Republic 8 months ago

Hi Emma:

To answer your question: I support free markets full stop. However, I also think a dictatorship of the proletariat, Maoist re-education camps, and songs of praise to the new tractor we bought for the collective farm are a necessary aspect of modern society under those markets. I mean… golly Emma… these workers aren’t going to organize themselves.

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Uncle Jay 8 months ago

"Have Republicans Abandoned Free Markets?"

Not as much as the democrats.
The democrats believe capitalism is nefarious, and we should all go to a command economy ruled by ruling elitists who have an advanced degree in economics.
After all, these elitists are so much more intelligent than all us peasants, and they will lead us to the path of economic glory just like their friends in Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela did.

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1. sarcasmic 8 months ago
  
  Democrats did it first and worse so it's ok.
  
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  1. Earth-based Human Skeptic 8 months ago
    
    Idiot.
    
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    1. sarcasmic 8 months ago
      
      Calling me names doesn’t make me wrong. Though it does impress my many haters. Makes them swoon. You like making them swoon, don’t you. Turns you on. Hubba hubba.
      
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      1. Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day) 8 months ago
        
        No, Yiu being wrong makes you wrong. And let’s be honest (something that is anathema to you), your severe lifelong alcoholism isn’t doing you any favors either.
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        sarcasmic 8 months ago
        
        If there is something wrong with what I said, feel free to point it out. Arguments against me as a person don't negate what I said, though they do give your girlfriends in these comments a chubby.
        
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      2. DesigNate 8 months ago
        
        No, what makes you wrong is that isn’t what anyone is saying (the it’s ok part). Unless we’re reading implications into people’s posts now.
        
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Rick James 8 months ago

asked convention attendees whether they believed that the Republican party had given up on free markets. Watch now to hear what they had to say!

I believe in the power of free markets, let me know when we have one.

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shadydave 8 months ago

What "free markets?" It's "managed trade" everywhere. There's not a government of any size on this planet that has any interest in there being a free market in any industry.

So you might as well say you support the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy.

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1. Zeb 8 months ago
  
  Free markets are an ideal to aim for. Of course there has never really been a totally free market. For me (as with most things) it comes down to individual freedom. I want the US government to interfere with people's choices of what to by and from whom as little as possible, whatever foreign governments may be doing.
  
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  1. shadydave 8 months ago
    
    That would be nice, but that's not on the menu. What's on the menu is in what way the US Government chooses to interfere with our choices of what to buy. It's not like buying TVs made in Vietnam is the natural extension of laissez faire economics. It's the natural extension of a series of government actions that make it prohibitively expensive to make them in the US. After all, it should be easier and cheaper to ship from Des Moines than from Hanoi.
    
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    1. Zeb 8 months ago
      
      The way to fix those problems is to stop doing the things that caused the problems in the first place. Otherwise you are just imposing more government solutions (i.e. violence and theft) and we know how likely that is to deliver what has been promised.
      
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    2. MJBinAL 8 months ago
      
      True.
      
      It is impossible to intelligently support Free Trade and a welfare state.
      It is impossible to intelligently support Open Borders and a welfare state.
      
      Yet inexplicitly, many of the commentators and columnists here do both.
      
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      1. Zeb 8 months ago
        
        I get the open borders one, but what's the conflict between free trade and a welfare state? And who is supporting a welfare state?
        
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2. Brandybuck 8 months ago
  
  "Have Republicans Abanded the Idea of nudging slowly in the direction of Freer Markets?"
  
  Answer: No. They abhor a relative reduction in the level of government intervention in markets.
  
  Fixed it for you.
  
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sarcasmic 8 months ago

Looks like they want fair markets, not free markets. When another country engages in unfree markets, we need to do the same thing. If they make their people pay high taxes on imports, well we need to pay high taxes too. Otherwise it's not fair. If they tax their people to subsidize politically connected industries and we don't. That's not fair. So we need more taxes and more subsidies. If they protect useless, overpaid union workers from competition, well we need to protect union workers too. Whenever another country engages in leftist economic policy that is detrimental to their own people, we need to do it too. Otherwise it isn't fair.

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1. Alberto Balsalm 8 months ago
  
  It’s basic game theory, duh. /sarc
  
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2. damikesc 8 months ago
  
  Sarc, just as a thought exercise, if we outsource everything --- what exactly do we have to exchange with them for those goods?
  
  People need to have jobs to be able to buy things.
  
  I'd go for ZERO tariffs happily. But that is not an option.
  
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  1. Brandybuck 8 months ago
    
    So you're saying EVERY job is a primary manufacturing job?
    
    During Trump's first term my company, and two other companies on the same street, companies you know the name of, could not MANUFACTURE their products in a timely manner because the whole supply chain got tied up in knots. Couldn't get simple ass chips.
    
    The theory was that 'Muricans would start to make their own chips. But it didn't happen. The Trumpistas apparently forgot all their basic economics, such as comparative advantage. There is no market in the US for a brand new hyper-expensive manufacturing plant for chips. Especially since Trump was SUBSIDIZING Taiwanese chip manufactures (Foxxcon). And so the board manufacturer who made control boards for Domestic US firms could not make those boards. Another firm could not make industrial inputs to Domestic US manufacturers. We could not make life saving medical devices. We spent months renegotiating contracts and finding new suppliers (none) and eventually charging the consumers more for the products.
    
    This was PURE FDR New Deal shit! According to FDR, making stuff more expensive means all the workers get paid more. So basically Trump's policies are a roundabout way of burning crops to make crop prices rise. Sucks for the consumers, gives woodies to the central planners.
    
    Fuck central planning, and fuck the Republicans acting like FDR instead of RR.
    
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shadydave 8 months ago

There seems to be this idea that when the US Government places regulations and restrictions on domestic labor and industries that they know damned well other countries won't follow, that's perfectly fine and normal. But when the US Government then decides to place tariffs on countries who don't follow those regulations and restrictions to level the playing field, the gods of the free markets get angry.

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1. sarcasmic 8 months ago
  
  There is no such thing as a tariff on another country. That is deliberately misleading, giving the impression that the other country pays those taxes. They do not. We do. When you demand tariffs on China, you are demanding to pay more for goods from China, and anything made with raw materials from China. You’re demanding inflation. For what? To get back at another country for rejecting free trade? It’s stupid. What you’re really doing is falling into a political trap where the politicians say they’re doing this for you, but they’re really just lining the pockets of politically connected industries that benefit from un-free trade at your expense.
  
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  1. Alberto Balsalm 8 months ago
    
    ^This. Tarrifs are a lazy/corrupt approach to a complex problem. They are also ineffective at bolstering US industry or "forcing" others to become more free market. They are effective at generating tax revenue for the kleptocrats.
    
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  2. Alberto Balsalm 8 months ago
    
    From the taxfoundation.org: Academic and governmental studies find the Trump-Biden tariffs have raised prices and reduced output and employment, producing a net negative impact on the US economy.
    
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    1. sarcasmic 8 months ago
      
      Inflation is almost always a monetary phenomenon, but not always. In economic terms it means a general increase in prices. Usually that's because an increase in the money supply results in too much money chasing not enough goods. Can also happen if the supply of goods decreases. During the pandemic we had both thanks to government spending and lockdowns.
      
      A third way to cause a general increase in prices is with tariffs. So those who are demanding more tariffs are unwittingly demanding inflation.
      
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      1. Brandybuck 8 months ago
        
        > In economic terms it means a general increase in prices.
        
        Nope. In economic terms it means an inflation of the money supply. The side effect of which is a general increase in prices. The cause of the general increase in prices has been known for two centuries now, but media and politicians have convinced the common man that it really means the general rise of prices, which are caused by animal spirits, corporate greed, OPEC, and insufficient tariffs.
        
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    2. shadydave 8 months ago
      
      Under what variables do they draw these conclusions. The fact of the matter is that there is no free market _economic_ reason why everybody's TV is manufactured in China or Vietnam.
      
      I am not actually in favor of tariffs, but what are we supposed to do? We lack the political will to unwind all of the domestic interference that causes us to be unable to produce anything of real value in this country other than corn and natural gas. We're becoming a labor market of people digging holes and filling them back in again, and using money printing and American military might to forestall the inevitable consequences of that.
      
      And it's not like we don't have a big event in the last few years that highlights the potential fallout we might feel from a country like China's blatant disregard for the welfare of its own people. And when we co-sign this sort of behavior, there will eventually be consequences for us. As there was in 2020. As there was for support of the Iranian regime in the 1970s. As there was for our support of the Saudi Arabian regime in the early 2000s.
      
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      1. Alberto Balsalm 8 months ago
        
        "..but what are we supposed to do?"
        
        Enjoy your cheap, amazing TV from China?
        
        "We lack the political will to unwind all of the domestic interference that causes us to be unable to produce anything of real value in this country other than corn and natural gas. We’re becoming a labor market of people digging holes and filling them back in again, and using money printing and American military might to forestall the inevitable consequences of that."
        
        Somewhat disagree. We produce plenty of things of real value. We only lack the political will to do things that could make us more competitive because the two asshole parties that run this country are ONLY concerned with control and power and don't actually give a shit about fixing any of the real problems facing this country. We're gonna drive that train until the wheels come off or we go over a cliff.
        
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    3. mad.casual 8 months ago
      
      They are effective at generating tax revenue for the kleptocrats.
      …
      From the taxfoundation.org: Academic and governmental studies find the Trump-Biden tariffs have raised prices and reduced output and employment, producing a net negative impact on the US economy.
      
      So… the kleptocrats that reap the revenue of tariffs exist outside the US economy and we should repeal the tariffs in order to get more kleptocrat money back into the US economy.
      
      That, or your claims of definition and causality are really more projections of associations you think or want to be more broadly true.
      
      If the US enacts a tariff on China and various Chinese manufacturers offload a bunch of S&L off on Vietnam or The Philippines in order to side-step the tariffs, does that make Vietnam and The Philippines the kleptocrats? If steel tariffs make Chevy engine blocks more expensive and people shift over to Ford or Toyota or other Aluminum engine blocks, does that make Ford, Toyota, and all their customers kleptocrats?
      
      Because it seems an awful lot like, by your own precepts, you’re playing a game of poker or blackjack with a checkers or tic-tac-toe mindset.
      
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2. Zeb 8 months ago
  
  There are lots of bad ideas.
  
  My idea is stop doing the first thing when it becomes a problem. Don't just keep adding more rules on top of it to address the problems earlier rules created.
  
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  1. shadydave 8 months ago
    
    But we either can't or won't. So now what? When all sorts of horrible things go on that are beyond your control, if you have options within your control to at the very least counteract some of those negative effects, do you do them? Or do you stick to same vague set of principles that nobody else on the entire planet is following?
    
    Yes, free market economies are superior to feudal economies. Most of the products we now buy are essentially manufactured by feudal economies, and all of our electronics are. So what happened?
    
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    1. Zeb 8 months ago
      
      None of this is remotely within my control at all. So I'll just keep arguing for what I think would be best.
      
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EdWard 8 months ago

A free market is one that gives people, not businesses or other entities, the most freedom Like government, businesses can act badly and reduce the freedom of people. Also, freedom is not just the ability to buy stuff. Governments and businesses manipulate markets to their ends which are not always the people's ends.

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1. sarcasmic 8 months ago
  
  Yes. Free trade, like much of the Austrian school of economics, puts consumers first. Free trade doesn't give fuckall about businesses. Companies come and go. They can extend their life by using government to prop them up or protect them from competition, and when they do the consumer loses. Unilateral free trade isn't great for businesses, but it is best for consumers.
  
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shadydave 8 months ago

People would have you believe that there's some sort of "comparative advantage" aspect as to why you can't buy a television manufactured in the United States, even by a "US Company" like VIZIO. That US labor is better deployed in sectors the rest of the world isn't as good at.

But nobody actually mentions what those industries might be. In practice, all it means is a bunch of people working in government jobs, domestic service sector jobs or going on the dole.

We don't manufacture televisions in the United States because the costs to do so here would be well above what they are in China, Vietnam, Mexico, etc. And those costs have absolutely ZERO to do with any free market principles; they are all based on government action. All of it.

So spare me the "free market" BS.

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1. sarcasmic 8 months ago
  
  Government policies, like it or not, are indeed a form of comparative advantage (or disadvantage).
  
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  1. Zeb 8 months ago
    
    And here's a crazy idea: if policies are putting your country at a disadvantage, stop doing those things and don't pretend that this time government interventions in the economy are going to work out great somehow.
    
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    1. sarcasmic 8 months ago
      
      You mean politicians admit to being wrong? Politicians admitting that them “doing something” isn’t always the answer? Haaa ha ha ha! That’s pretty good!
      
      Here, I’ve got one.
      
      How do you get a sweet little old lady to drop the f-bomb?
      
      Get another sweet little old lady to yell “Bingo!”
      
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2. MJBinAL 8 months ago
  
  Amen. Preach on brother.
  
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Mickey Rat 8 months ago

If there has been no difference between the two major parties, then why are getting so much hand wringing here about what principles the GOP may or may not have abandoned recently?

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1. Nobartium 8 months ago
  
  Apostasy is worse than opposition.
  
  Just look at the drunk. He lives that.
  
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nobody 2 8 months ago

The Republicans abandoned free markets before any of us were born. The only question is whether they've stopped lying about it.

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TJJ2000 8 months ago

Reason.... Endlessly....
"NO-TAX on my foreign widgets else UR not free market.... But 80% Tax on Domestic; oh well..."

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JFree 8 months ago

I don't think 'free trade' as propounded here is worth a shit. It is certainly not an economic concept. It is really just ideological and even religious. I wouldn't go so far as to go along with an Oren Cass type approach which seems to me to be where the R are going.

But to the degree that 'tariffs' or protectionism are simply there to put sand/friction in longer distance trade, that is a positive. We live in particular space. There is no reason why multinationals/globalists/the huge should be favored at the expense of the local.

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1. JFree 8 months ago
  
  Rephrased - intracompany trade is not remotely the same as real arm's length trade between different people.
  
  How much 'trade' with eg China or certainly Mexico is simply material moving in an intracompany accounting transaction - where prices themselves are artificial.
  
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Rick James 8 months ago

A scandal that should be on the front page of every newspaper in America.

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1. mad.casual 8 months ago
  
  This is a very problematic story.
  
  No, the story is straightforward abuse of power, insurrectionist uprising, people swinging from lampposts as symbols to any who would succeed them story. Our current political climate that prevents anything even remotely like it, even largely from it being heard, is what's problematic.
  
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JD Joe 8 months ago

A better question is: "Have the American people abandoned free markets?"

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1. MJBinAL 8 months ago
  
  How do you abandon something you never had and never really wanted in the first place?
  
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Jim Logajan 8 months ago

I assume “Free Market” is most everyone’s short form of the statement “Market free of government enforced dictates on or affecting economic exchanges and agreements.”

Where government police powers are sparse to nonexistent, such as on an expanding frontier, a “Free Market” should by definition be operative.

Space: the final frontier of free markets.

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Brandybuck 8 months ago

> Have Republicans Abandoned Free Markets?

Where they EVER in favor of Free Markets? No they were not. Thus asking them if they have abandoned free markets is like asking them if they have stopped beating their wife. No, they continue to beat their wife. Duh.

To paraphrase Bill Buckley, "Now's not the time for free markets, we have a cold war we have to win!"

While Republicans do love tax cuts, their revealed preferences (what they actually do rather than say) show that they love spending more. All sorts of economic interventions at the local level. Indeed, except for taxes, there are no fundamental differences between the Rs and the Ds at the local level.

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Have Republicans Abandoned Free Markets?

Reason's Emma Camp attended the Republican National Convention to ask attendees if they still believe in the power of free markets.

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