I don't for one minute live under the illusion that my philosophy is shared by a majority. I am so far in the minority my side is barely a blip on the screen. I get that.
But that doesn't mean the majority holds the moral high ground just because it is a majority. And in this case I believe they are way out of line to expect the government to put the minority under its thumb just so they can pretend they have dignity in their job. I'm quite certain they don't care a whit what I think as long as the government intercedes on their behalf to put food on their table.
My argument is that's not a proper function of government. And in the long run it is a practice destined for failure, and destined for a tyrannical government.
I disagree completely with you that the "market spoke" in the last election. The market operates outside the purview of the state. People's political will may have spoken, but that is virtually the opposite of free markets at work. Free markets do not allow for Presidents (or legislatures, or judges) to dictate winners and losers in the economy.
I am getting the impression there may not be much middle ground for this conversation to continue, we may be speaking passed each other. For starters, I have zero desire for a President to decide winners and losers, which is the implication you ended with.
That said, I'll leave you with my over-arching philosophy (which has reformed over time): to hear me speak of trade or markets 4 or more years ago, I would have most likely fallen in
@07pilt 's "Hayek" bucket.
Since then, I increasingly see the hardship and cost families are burdened with in the pursuit of idealistic theories on "trade."
"Trade" doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it is much more multivariate in impact than a graph can convey. There are countless dimensions to this equation.
I don't profess to know an ideal answer, or even have an idea of how the "answer" is defined. So, I've chosen to define what MY priority is: Maximizing the satisfaction (vaguely defined) of the US citizen. That's simplistic, does my broader take a disservice, but is succinct; it's the prism through which I largely view my politics.
The unquantified costs of trade, and I DO lump labor in the trade basket, are showing: economic insecurity, stagnant rise in working/middle class wages, loss of jobs, etc. These things can be granularized further for better consumption of impact.
In the totality of a quality life, I don't believe maximizing the ability to consume to the ultimate definition of the optimization of human experience. *Though I do think consumption is a fairly large chunk of that.
Much like corporations have undergone tremendous evolutions in recent decades by writing HR policy on the back of legitimate research on employee satisfaction, I believe US policy should be geared in a similar manner.... not toward the existing assumption of free trade theory that max consumption is optimal, but toward a more abstract measure of quality of life that includes other known human needs.
With almost anything a person can consume within the grasp of even the lowest 20% of US citizens, I'm willing to forgo a little consumption in favor of sub-optimal trade. My understood trade off is US policy that alleviates the burden being borne by population segments affected the most by the churning of "creative destruction."
