“She's got a plan for that.” So goes presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren's new and highly effective campaign slogan. On its face, it's a fairly socialist-sounding catchphrase. It promises that no matter what issue our society is facing, our wise and benevolent ruler will have a plan to fix it—a plan imposed by the government. But Warren is not really a socialist. In fact, when it comes to economic issues, she has a lot in common with conservatives.
We tend to think of conservatism as the antithesis of economic interventionism, but this is not quite correct. While it is true that since the Reagan administration, conservatives have generally supported more market-oriented policies (e.g., tax cuts, deregulation, reducing trade barriers), earlier traditional conservatives were much more skeptical of capitalism. They worried that free trade and unfettered markets would encourage the concentration of big business, depress wages, tear apart families and communities, and lead to cultural degradation.
Read Full Article »