Category Archives: Populism

Dr George Akuffo Dampare, the Inspector General of Police

Akufo-Addo appoints Dampare as IGP

Dampare hailed for enhancing police visibility

Woman narrates how Dampare saved fathers life

Among the plethora of reasons, Dr George Akuffo Dampare, the Inspector General of Police is hailed by many Ghanaians is his decision to follow traffic regulations instead of blazing his siren through.

On a number of occasions, photos of Dr Dampares official car GP1 in traffic have flooded the social media space amid commendations for a show of servitude and modesty.

While the praises have been loudest, some persons have expressed concern over the issue with the argument that it is populist and also expose him to possible danger.

Over the weekend another photo of Dr Dampares official vehicle in traffic was spotted by a social media user who shared it on his platform.

Commenting on the photo, the Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Scheme, Gifty Oware-Aboagye, accused the IGP of engaging in populism.

She argued that Dampares decision to follow traffic rules is bad and that the Police Council should call him to order.

Its unethical and a breach of our security status. Where is the Police Council? They need to ask him to stop doing this. It is populist and not right, she posted.

Dampare was appointed by President Akufo-Addo as IGP in July 2021 in acting capacity. He was subsequently confirmed as substantive IGP after impressing in the role.

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It's populist and unethical Oware-Aboagye slams Dampare for obeying traffic regulations - GhanaWeb

Some falsely called it a false flag. Others disagreed with the tactics. The radical right's reaction to Patriot Front's DC rally shows they're not as united as they seem.

Alexander Reid Ross holds a PhD from the Earth, Environment, Society program at Portland State University where he teaches in the Geography Department. He is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right and Senior Research Fellow at the Network Contagion Research Institute.

In an attention-getting action marked by US flags, shields, and khaki pants previously reported by The Daily Beast, the US-based neo-fascist group Patriot Front marched on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on Saturday 4th December. The flurry of social media posts expressing online contempt for the action was not limited to left-wingers, with anti-vaxxers and fascist accelerationists those seeking agitation to violently overthrow the US democratic system -leaping on the opportunity to decry the demonstration as a false flag and label its supporters feds and bourgeois journalists.

Patriot Front emerged in 2017 from the detritus of the infamous Charlottesville Alt-Right rally, Unite the Right, which ended with far-right activist James Alex Fields murdering antifascist Heather Heyer as he drove his car into a crowd of antifascist protestors. When pictures surfaced showing Fields in the same costume as the group Vanguard America (khaki pants with a white knit shirt), members split to form Patriot Front in a bid to rehabilitate the optics of their white nationalist movement.

Today, Patriot Fronts reputation largely stems from an antisemitic sticker campaign across the US, as well as banner drops and flare-lit flash marches, which last only a short time, and are intended for sensationalist displays like Saturdays Lincoln Memorial march. The US-based counter-extremism organization, the Anti-Defamation League, found Patriot Front responsible for 80% of all antisemitic events in 2020, largely due to the dispersed nature of their propaganda campaign.

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Yet many on the far right believe the Patriot Fronts latest actions counter-productive or worse. On Twitter, the popular right-wing anti-vaxx account @ArtValley818_ asked whether the protest at the National Mall was Another false flag? adding, this shit looks fake af to me. Another fed fest if you ask me. His tweets gained more than six thousand likes.

Another prominent conspiracy theory account on Twitter called @rising_serpent agreed with the sentiment, sharing a photo of the Patriot Front march alongside a photograph of an impersonation of Vanguard America holding tiki torches by the center-right Lincoln Project. Their tweet, Follow the khaki, received over a thousand likes, showing that numerous right-wingers saw the Patriot Front as an impersonation by a nexus of Conservatives, antifa, and federal law enforcement.

Even Indian-American right-wing political commentator and conspiratorial provocateur, Dinesh DSouza, got in on the action in a tweet with close to 30 thousand likes, insisting, Take a closer look. Does this look real to you? Or does this look like a group of federal agents pretending to be right-wing extremists?

And days later, American podcast host and UFC commentator, Joe Rogan, repeated the claim: Tell me that doesnt look like feds Im a unreliable source maybe theyre real, but Im calling bullshit.

Moving from public to dark social media, on Telegram, neo-Nazi accelerationist channels that make up the loosely associated fascist network sometimes referred to as Terrorgram heaped additional criticism onto the more-populist sector of the far right. The channel, Corona Chan News, declared, This overwhelming condemnation is exactly what you movementarian[s] deserve for trying to use good optics to appeal to the normies aka scum of the earth.

Corona Chan is an extreme example of far-right opinion, having faced a ban by the typically laissez-faire Telegram app in the wake of the January 6 Capitol putsch, but thats precisely the thing; the repudiation of Patriot Front from the mass-based anti-vaxxer right to the extreme accelerationist variety of fascist insurrectionaries reveals a general turn in the US right.

During 2015, the Alt Right took the US political scene by storm, promoting better optics to appeal to the general public of American voters who blamed the establishment of both parties for the impasses of the USs political system. These optics, involving more-competent photoshop work, new podcast networks, and formal conferences, offered an air of seriousness and professionalism, underpinned by online trolling and calls to violence.

Some more-committed fascists joined the accelerationist group, Atomwaffen Division, during this period, in part as an expression of dissent from the Alt Right camp and its form of white nationalist populism, but they remained relatively marginal within the right. Yet the decline of the Alt Right after Unite the Right and the subsequent failure of the Stop the Steal movement led many to feel disenchanted with populist displays as a route to their accelerationist end game.

As one poster on Telegram declared on Saturday, I am not here to denounce [Patriot Front] but I cannot understand why anyone would want to attempt a march again after Unite the Right and Stop the Steal achieved nothing but put White people behind bars.

The argument from accelerationists is not that fascist activity should be disregarded, but that fascists should scorn public actions in favor of more clandestine terror in order to bring about the disintegration of liberal democracy.

On the other hand, other remaining elements of the Alt Right manifest within the tiny National Justice Party attempted to defend the Patriot Front action against its myriad of critics, lashing out at Trump supporters in particular.

Only thing cuckservatives feeling politically threatened can do is cope, co-founder Joseph Eric Striker, Jordan stated on Telegram. where are trannies? Wheres Ricky Rebel?? Where are the based blacks in maga hats? Must be ANTIFA crisis actors and feds pretending to be patriots!!!, he added.

Strikers post suggests an increasing intolerance for the populist radical right within a US fascist movement that once saw Trump as, in the words of Alt Right leader Richard Spencer, the Napoleon of the current yearsomeone who could bring together populist forces toward a nationalist consensus.

But the Alt Rights dubious progeny did get the nod from Steve Bannon over Telegram, whose War Room podcast has promoted the National Justice Party and, more recently, posted a link supportive of the DC march from a site that calls itself an assault on jewish (sic) sensibilities. Bannon promised to make Breitbart the platform of the Alt Right, so his naked support of a fascist organization marching through DC is only one fig leaf shy of his normal backroom choreography. However, the seriousness of the splits indicate continuing strains that were absent during the more-unified days of MAGA and the Alt Right during Trumps rise.

Today, Telegram is littered with accounts trying to pick up the scattered pieces of the far right to forge a tenuous synthesis. Disillusioned by past failures, spin-offs from groups, like the Proud Boys, now more openly proclaim fascist politics.

For instance, the Telegram channels The Western Chauvinist and the Proud Boys to Fascist Pipeline, playing host to 51,732 and 3,143 subscribers respectively, represent embattled attempts to maintain an uneasy truce between populist and accelerationist tendencies.

Yet the deep rift between the accelerationists and the populists shows no real signs of ameliorating. In Corona Chans response to Striker, the account declares, The National Justice Party and their allies like Patriot Front want to profit off White decline, not prevent it. Theyre controlled opposition. They fight White militancy harder than the jews and libtards, calling Striker and his associates, bourgeois journalists and pretend politicians.

Ironically, what the accelerationists share in common with the comparatively tame MAGA crowd is that they adamantly reject COVID vaccines, accusing the National Justice Party and Patriot Front of avoiding the issue altogether. This is how you know they are fed glow ops.

Whether or not they spread sufficient COVID-related conspiracy theories for the accelerationists, as the National Justice Party drifts further away from the MAGA crowd (i.e. loyal Trump supporters) that once brought them life, the cultural influence of the Alt Right appears more remote than ever, despite Patriot Fronts public efforts to make themselves available to antifascist doxxers.

Yet despite Patriot Fronts recent unpopular action, their increasing distance from the MAGA crowd does not diminish the extent to which those populist forces elevated and escalated the fascist movement in the US together for years. And with the refusal to sanction Lauren Boebert, the acceptance of white nationalists like Steve King and Paul Gosar, and the impunity apparently offered to Matt Gaetz, there does not seem to be any serious effort from the Republican camp to put the genie back in the bottle.

This article is brought to you by the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR). Through their research, CARR intends to lead discussions on the development of radical right extremism around the world. Rantt has been partnered with CARR for 3 years. Weve published over 150 articles from CARRs network of PhDs, historians, professors, and experts analyzing extremism and combating disinformation.

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White Supremacist "Patriot Front" Rally Exposes Splits On The Far-Right - Rantt Media

ByPatrick Peralta*

In the hills of Baguio, the summer capital of the Philippines, a massive head hovers above the trees. Carved on the side of Mount Pugo, La Union, the 30-meter concrete bust overlooks the northern provinces, as if gazing over its vast domain. The head is of former president and dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Yet today, his effigy is hardly recognizable. Shortly after the 1986 People Power Revolution that deposed and exiled the Marcos family, indigenous groups displaced by the busts construction returned to smear pigs blood across the leaders face. Three years later, communist rebels bombed the same bust, leaving intact only the heads lower half and exposing its hollow interior. The once powerful Marcos, who steered the Philippines for 21 years, had been deposed, evicted, and now defaced.

Philippine scholar Bobby Benedictoreadssuch destruction as the symbolic death blows to the Marcos regime, that for revolution to put an end to the time of dictatorship it must also target the figures that render the dictator timeless and his rule without end. In literally imprinting himself onto the mountainside, Marcos sought to make visible his legacy, a piece of himself to remember through time. In blowing it up, his detractors shattered that legacy and thereby exposed its contradictions.

Or so was the hope among Philippine democrats in 1986. Today, 35 years after the People Power Revolution, the Philippine public largely views the disgraced Marcoses not with contempt and dread but with a longing for what was, and for what could have been. Indeed, in the minds of many Filipinos, the potential return to power of the Marcos clan is a vindication ofwhat was supposed to be.

With the late dictators son, former senator BongBong Marcos (BBM), declaring his candidacy for president in Octoberand with public support nearly overwhelmingthe chance to wrest back power draws closer to reality. A September 2021 Pulse Asiasurvey, for instance, put Marcos in second place among declared and undeclared presidential candidates, bested only by Sara Duterte, the daughter of the current president-dictator. In October, the Social Weather StationsgaveMarcos a 60 percent chance of victory, with runner-up and current vice president Leni Robredo a full 25 points behind. In mid-November, giving the campaign an even greater boost, Sara Dutertejoinedthe late dictators son as his running mate.

Even if polls shift in the coming months, it is hard to ignore the vigor and commitment of BBMs supporters, 8,000 of whom in early November held the longestmotorcadein the country, which spanned 78 miles. We did this to show Bongbong Marcos that we can sacrifice for him, declared one of the caravans volunteer organizers, There is no need to pay us. For these Filipinos, the Marcoses did not fall from grace, much less rape the country through plunder and torture. These Filipinos see themselves as heirs to a Philippine goldenage, a glorious legacy interrupted by revolution. The familys return is thus almost messianic, with its supporters as stewards of a political rapture.

To observers in the Western world, Filipinos seem like an overly forgiving people willing to forget the sins of the past. To scholars, liberal democracy issystemicallyflawed, incapable of meeting the rising demands of inequality and representation. Yet perhaps the bust in Baguio offers another kind of answer. While Marcos supporters see it as a tribute to the presidents exemplary leadership and critics consider it a display of his utter vanity, the bust, more profoundly, is a product of a national political culture that has been obsessed withspectacles.

Regardless of whether one agrees with its intent, the busts existence radiates a fantasy, papering over the leaders blemishes for a timeless, unchanging image of strength. For it was Marcos aura of public grandeur, after all, that allowed him to literally carve his likeness onto the national landscape. Scaling the larger Baguio countryside, for example, is an eponymous highway that leads to vast bridges, the familys mansions, and a presidential center. An hours drive into Manila reveals grand theaters and complexes commissioned by Marcos wife, Imelda. These remnants, like the bust, effectively seed the familys immortality as physical reminders of apparent prosperity in a country scarred by ruin.

Thus the busts destruction, while disfiguring the surface, could not entirely upend a cultural fascination with the spectacular: another bust could simply reemerge in its place. Indeed, in recent years, a more powerful one already has. The capacity of social media to democratize spectacleby flooding the public realm with nearly unlimited truthshas intensified the blurring of appearance and fact, performance and policy, past and present. And BongBongs dominance on YouTube has successfully broadcast a different memory of revolution that is supplanting his familys national injustice with their political return.

You need only watch a few BBM vlogs before you start (almost) admiring the late dictators son. In one video hesreviewingviral Filipino TikToks, in another hes donning new looks in amakeover. Sometimes these vlogs include the whole family for various social media challenges: confronting funny truths with alie detector, testing their mettle in a whats in the box, and dissing and exposing each other in a whos most likely. The skillful engineering and editing give them the feel of BuzzFeed videos. Depicting the interiority of the Marcos family and the rhythms of their daily lives, the vlogs are cheerful, humorous, affectionate, and seemingly unscripted. In three years, these ahistorical portraits have attracted nearly two million subscribers and millions more viewers. With YouTube and Facebookrankingas the most popular social media apps in the Philippines, the strength of BBMs online support cannot be understated.

The Marcoses deployment of spectacle to stir and sustain mass support is hardly new to Philippine public life. Indeed, for a country that sent world champion boxer Manny Pacquio to its senate and movie star Isko Moreno to the Manila mayors office andplacedthem third and fourth, respectively, as 2022 presidential favorites the grand personalization of politics is routine, and almost expected. As Philippine media scholar Anna Cristina Pertierraobserves, the glitz of showbusiness and success of personal charisma evoke positive versions of [patron-client] relationships to generate followings that are easily translated between the screen and the ballot box. The Marcoses, perhaps more astutely than anyone, recognized this link. In the 1960s, the newly wedded Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos rose to power by boasting expensive looks and offering flashy performances to generate popular appeal. Oftensingingtogether at campaign events, they turned their lives into a private spectacle, staging a stylized version of their intimacy. Imelda, in fact, fashioned herself as the Peoples Star, believing that the poor needed dreams and she fulfilled their wishes by being a star.

Yet the sheen of the couples public charisma soon proved to be affectations when their obsession with aesthetics turned obscene and criminal. In full command of the Philippine economy, they amassed extravagant houses, jewels, artwork, furniture, a legendary collection of shoes, and even aprivate zoowith animals illegally imported from Africa. According to the Philippine Supreme Court, they drew$10 billiondollars from the nations treasury, which they later laundered through Swiss bank accounts. In the later Marcos years, the conjugal dictatorship commissioned exorbitant public works projects, a fixation Philippine historian Gerard Lico called Imeldas edifice complex. Behindand at one point, beneaththese splendid buildings are stains of human tragedy: 50 indigenous groups were forciblyrelocatedinto reservations, and later enlisted to perform tribal rituals for tourists at the Philippine Cultural Center; rural Filipino childrenstarvedto death even as the Philippine Childrens Medical Center opened in the capital; and an entire floor of the Manila Film Centercollapsedonto 169 workers during its weeks-long construction. Allegedly, the Marcoses ordered the surviving construction crew to simply build over the cement-cased bodies.

To be clear, infrastructure projects are not inherently political props, and are often needed and widely used by the general public. But nearly all of the Marcoses sites were built fast, recklessly, and for the pleasure of aglobal audiencewhile fellow Filipinos literally fell through the cracks. Such is the kind of ruthless impunity seen now in the Marcos political return, which has largely been facilitated by BBMs vlogs of historical revisionism.

Three recurring themes emerge from BongBong Marcos videos: injury, proximity, and exceptionalism. Each scaffolds a central populist message: you and I struggled for the past 30 years you and I are cut from the same cloth so lets restore this nations greatnesstogether.

In a series called #ProtestWatch, for instance, BBM documented his refusal to concede the 2016 vice presidential race after barely losing to Robredo, blaming her camp for voter fraud and ballot tampering. After filing legal challenges to the Supreme Court, he recounts in onevideohow throngs of loyalists who had camped outside the court for 100 days provided him hundreds and thousands of friendly faces. Inanother, to the backdrop of BBM! chants, one supporter proclaims, We are here fighting for the truth! These protests continued even as the Supreme Court issued aunanimous rulingconfirming Robredos win and chastised Marcos for his anemic claims. This victim complex is, arguably, an extension of Ferdinand and Imeldasinsistencethat anti-martial law activists were insurgents who, out of political avarice, exiled and convicted legitimate public servants. But in the age of social media, such indignation takes on new meaning, as these videos update supporters in real time and invite new followers through vicarious appeal.

Many BBM vlogs also show Marcos and his team carrying out ayuda drives, which involve hauling truckloads of food, medicine, clothes, masks, and other supplies to disaster- or COVID-affected areas, and handing them directly to locals. When theTaal Volcanoerupted in 2020, engulfing surrounding villages with ash, a BBM vlog showed the former senator touring evacuation centers while taking selfies with families brandishing their new care packages. Its important to show that the national government is here for them, too, Marcos said to the camera, while the local government is evacuating them from danger. Thus the appeal of proximity lies not only in cheeky fast talks with his son Sandro or an attempt at the popular video gameMobile Legendsefforts that can be read as youth voter outreachbut in being with communities in need as the national response falters. However, even as these vlogs fatten the heart, as Marcos puts it, they are indeed another spectacle. While Sandro Marcos chose tohand out personal protective equipmentto fellow Ilocanos during his birthday, his familys long reign over Ilocos Norte, the northwestern coast of Luzon, belies effective public service. According to a 2009reportfrom the Philippines Human Development Indexwhich measures regional levels of educational attainment, life expectancy, and income per capitaIlocos ranks sixth, falling behind islands like Davao, Cebu, and Baguio. Thats hardly anything worth vlogging about.

Yet those statistics, which stem from policy decisions, will likely never enter the minds of BBM vlog viewers, who avidly believe that the Marcoses carry and share greatness. Celebrating his fathers 104th birthday, BBMreflectedon the legacy of the president: My father had a vision, a dream for our country. Let us return to that concept of service for nation building. Such messaging urges Filipinos to recall years of national development and strength as a template for forging a nostalgic future, one BongBong inevitably hopes to claim.

But the power of the Marcosian spectacle is that it does not simply project or circulate its truth it endears and identifies even as it ultimately distracts. For instance, in onevlogpraising Filipino resiliency, BBM wipes away tears as he shows videos of people smiling, dancing, and even carrying lechon (roasted pig) as they tread through summer flood waters brimming with trash. Thats always been the Filipino spirit, an effusive Marcos declares, the resiliency of our countrymen is truly out of this world. However, as writer Jelou Galangargues, romanticizing resilience is toxic, as it normalizes suffering and abdicates government responsibility, giving people permission to forget their righteous rage.

When the singing fades and the cameras stop rolling, the Marcoses pockets will still be stuffed with bloodied money money they stole, money they killed for, money from their own peoplecircling backto create these vlogs. Today, there is no democratic revolution bursting onto the horizon. Instead, Filipinos appear to be findingrecourse and recoveryin an authoritarian fraud on par with that of President Duterte. Amid a steepening economiccrisis, a haphazard pandemicresponse, numerouscorruption scandals, territorial standoffs with China,environmental ruin, and tens of thousands of extrajudicial killings, the resounding popular will is continuity, not revolution. The unique power of YouTube in conditioning this consent thus gives Marcos more than votes or political clout. It gives him ownership over the spirit of People Power, over the right of a disenchanted people to redirect their nations future. After more than thirty years of exclusive democracy, Filipinos are doing exactly that by reinstalling the family they had proudly deposed.

What will it take to again expose the hollow core of that bust of Ferdinand Marcos? Perhaps its too late to say. Thanks to the combined efforts of BongBong Marcos and Sara Duterte, the bust may soon be whole again.

*Patrick Peralta is a Racial Equity Fellow at the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies and an intern with Foreign Policy In Focus.

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Spectacles Of Amnesia: YouTube Populism And The Rehabilitation Of The Marcoses OpEd - Eurasia Review

As soon as we started seeing the changes this year going in the wrong direction, namely for further rate reductions, then we started getting worried about the currency, Ms. Calich said. That has been, so far, the wrong policy response. And yeah, weve been very happy to have exited that position.

There are few politically palatable options for emerging market countries dealing with an inflationary upsurge and weakening currencies. But for a number of reasons, the inflationary rise is especially tricky political terrain for populists like Messrs. Orban, Erdogan and Bolsonaro, who all face elections in 2022 or 2023.

Their personalized approach to politics and the fact that they have all been in office for years makes it difficult for them to sidestep blame for the condition of the economy. At the same time, their brand of populism, which emphasizes nationalist rivalries and has been effective in the past, can seem out of touch to citizens whose standards of living are swiftly plummeting.

The traditional remedy for inflation would call for some combination of higher interest rates from the central bank and skimpier government spending. But both moves would probably hurt economic growth and employment, at least in the short term, potentially worsening prospects of re-election.

In Turkey, Mr. Erdogan who has adopted an increasingly authoritarian leadership style since surviving a coup attempt in 2016 has ruled out such a conventional response. In recent weeks, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, essentially under Mr. Erdogans personal control, has repeatedly cut interest rates.

Most observers think Mr. Erdogan has made a difficult situation much worse, with the prospect of more interest rate cuts and currency declines driving foreign investors to pull their money from Turkey.

At the same time, the political winds also seem to be blowing against Mr. Erdogan. The worsening economic situation has prompted scattered street protests. Opposition politicians are calling for snap elections to deal with the crisis, while hammering Mr. Erdogan for what they call his disastrous management of the economy.

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Inflationary Wave Changes Political Terrain for Right-Wing Populists - The New York Times

Institutional change, on any fundamental level, will have those that seek to defend the status quo up in arms. But in order to effectively curb illegal mergers and monopolies, the FTC must stop paying attention to the antitrust religion of consumer welfare.

Earlier this week, Professors Sokol and Wickelgren published a post warning of issues at the Federal Trade Commission. This piece responds to their concerns.

The FTC should play an essential role in curbing illegal mergers and monopolies. Increasing its enforcement would be welcome. But to do so effectively, the FTC must stop paying attention to the antitrust religion of consumer welfarethe legal doctrinethat directs enforcers to only pursue anticompetitive conduct that harms consumers, and the dominant paradigm in antirust enforcement for the past 40 yearsthat perpetuates a regime that makes law firms and economists rich, markets more concentrated, and the world worse off.

Proponents of consumer welfare theory purport it to be science, having borrowed the notion from physics. It is beyond the scope of this piece, but an example from my article should suffice. Efficiency in physics measures how much energy is preserved by a system. The greater the preservation of energy, the greater the efficiency of the system. However, most physical processes cannot be reversed, especially those that involve things such as electrical generation or heat. Most energy processes are not fully efficient.

Consumer welfare theory is essentially the bastardization of physics into economic theory. As Robert Bork stated in The Antitrust Paradox: Consumer welfare is greatest when societys economic resources are allocated so that consumers are able to satisfy their wants as fully as technological constraints permit.

However, the welfare of the economic system as it changes in relationship to, say, a merger, is not what is examined. Instead, what is examined is change in a relevant market, which was initially scrutinized to determine injury to consumers within that market. Thus, the merger creates changes in the relevant market only, and only those changes that remain in the market are considered positive or negative. Every other change is beyond the scope of examination.As an example, one type of efficiency for a merger in a relevant market might be massive layoffs. The effect of those layoffs falls beyond the scope of antitrust but may well count as positive for the purpose of antitrust analysis.

If other areas of the law followed similar polestars, the problem would be obvious. Consider a policy in which a polluter lowered costs by dumping pollution into a river is hailed as a consumer-welfare enhancing hero while people die because their water is poisoned: Let someone else figure out why people are dying. Thats not our beat.

This is what I mean by the religion of consumer welfare: A belief that those issues will be addressed elsewhere, and the maximization of consumer welfare over everything else is a good. It is an ethical consideration.

The Biden Administration has laced the FTC and other key positions with the Neo-Brandeisiansor populists, as Sokol and Wickelgren describe them. There is little that unites the Neo-Brandeisians into a school of thought, except perhaps the belief that the religion of consumer welfare is wrong. As for what religion should be in its stead, there has not been much consistency. It is a school of thought that has not quite established its ethical underpinnings.

But the attack on consumer welfare and the misapplication of the antitrust laws is nothing new. For more than 30 years, many scholars have criticized the application of antitrust laws, many based on theories that conflict with consumer welfare theory. The thing that unites these scholars with the Neo-Brandeisianswho mostly ignore themis they seek to make antitrust great again. The intellectual underpinnings of the future of antitrust might already be right there before them. Consumer welfare has been definitively attacked for its intellectual poverty, and will continue to be so.

Sokol and Wickelgren argue that FTC Chair Lina Khan is currently ignoring stakeholders in the antitrust system, presumably including FTC staff, defense counsel, and merging parties. The stakeholders the authors seemingly seek to protect will fight vigorously for the consumer welfare religion they have adopted. Every movement of antitrust since the 1970s has been in furtherance of the consumer welfare religion.

Its also only natural for folks to strongly defend the status quo with shots such as this one from Sokol and Wickelgren: The Biden administration is following the Trump Administrations approach of prioritizing loyalty and ideology over expertise and experience among staff. The difference between expertise and loyalty is merely one of label. Check out the history of the revolving door of antitrust enforcers. Are they appointed due to loyalty or due to their expertise? Hard to say, and it sounds like more of an ad hominem. Real change is difficult.

Sokol and Wickelgren also have specific concerns worthy of addressing in turn.

Fewer Judicial Checks on bureaucratic power. Im not sure why Sokol and Wickelgren think that the FTC is less subject to judicial review now than it was before. If anything, there is real concern about whether independent agencies might survive the current Supreme Court. Several Justices have expressed skepticism as to whether Congress can delegate its legislative powers to independent agencies (a principle administrative law types call the non-delegation doctrine). In an era in which several Supreme Court justices may revive those non-delegation concerns, it seems that nearly everything is potentially subject to judicial review.

Moreover, theres no evidence to support concerns of an FTC gone wild. To the extent the FTC seeks to redefine the boundaries of Section 5, isnt that a legitimate use of agency authority? Is that not what other independent administrative agencies do?

Sokol and Wickelgren lament a lack of judicial oversight. I agree with them, perhaps more broadly than they wish. During the past 17 years, the DC Circuit has pretty much precluded any court within its jurisdiction from interfering in a consent decree, an agreement between merging parties and the Department of Justices antitrust division. Such agreements require the court to find the decree in the public interest, according to the Tunney Act. In fact, the standard established by the DC Circuit all but precludes judicial review. I did not hear the cries from anyone, (except perhaps myself) about the complete abdication of judicial responsibility under the Tunney Act.

THERES NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT CONCERNS OF AN FTC GONE WILD.

Internal Decision Making. Sokol and Wickelgren argue, Studies across fields show the importance of diverse viewpoints in creating more effective outcomes. Yet the FTC, said Wilson, has erected walls between majority Democratic and minority Republican Commissionersthey no longer share drafts of decisions, which is unprecedented in modern antitrust history.

I agree with them as to the minor point: drafts ought to be shared. But to me, they have just made a very good argument for the elimination of the Department of Justices antitrust division, an executive branch agency run by members of only one political party at a time. And there have been times, such as when President George W. Bushs team took over from the Clinton Administration, that diverse viewpoints were not heard. For example, during the remedy negotiations ordered by Judge Kollar-Kotelly in the DOJs litigation against Microsoft, trial staff was ignored and belittled. To the extent that there is great concern about the politicization of antitrust, it would seem that it is the DOJ side that is most concerning.

Rejection of Expertise. Sokol and Wickelgren argue that the current FTC leadership criticizes reliance on economic analysis, caricaturing academic literature to justify dropping the agencys guidance to companies about which vertical mergers may be challenged.

I agree that staff ought to have been consulted, but this is by no means the first time this has happened. Staff are frequently left out of decisions, both in regard to policy and to cases under their control. But if were worried about keeping talented staff, the authors forget how often staff has been ignored, abused, insulted, and demoralized by political appointees of both parties. I already mentioned the Bush administrations outright hostility to trial staff in Microsoft. Or how about the frustrations of staff at the DOJ for what happened after the suit was brought to stop the American Airlines-US Airways merger? If we are going to lament the politization of antitrust during and after the Trump Administration, best to check prior administrations, too.

Yes, a larger policy issue is at stake, so I understand the frustration as to reasons given for the withdrawal of the Vertical Merger Guidelines. But this is a battle of religion. At its core, it is a debate about what is valued and what isnt.

Undermining Accountability. Sokol and Wickelgren lament that the FTCs expanded goals are not susceptible to the democratic process. This is odd, given that stakeholders have not complained about the constriction of the FTC Act to already existing antitrust laws. Others have.

The accountability that Sokol and Wickelgren seek continues as it always has. What Congress gave, Congress can take away. While it is true that independent administrative agencies like the FTC, as a whole, are not directly susceptible to the democratic process, there sure seems to be a lot of influence via budgets, legislation, and nominations.

There is also judicial scrutiny that could limit the FTCs authority. According to the Supreme Court, administrative agencies have broad discretion to interpret their own statutes in instances in which a statutory provision is ambiguous as to the issue in question or where Congress has explicitly left a gap for the agency to fill. The FTC has not been given as much Chevron deference as it deserves in terms of interpretation of its own statute. Maybe its time.

In contrast, other administrative agencies vacillate far more than the FTC. As the DC Circuit itself pointed out in regard to the National Labor Relations Board, It is a fact of life in NLRB lore that certain substantive provisions of the NLRA invariably fluctuate with the changing compositions of the Board. So long as the agencys interpretation is consistent with its statute and does not cause retroactive liability arising from its new interpretation, policy deviations are the norm.

In short, to the extent that Sokol and Wickelgren believe the FTC is currently misbehaving, they can take comfort in the fact it is not the first time an agency has done so, and Congress and the courts are there to protect the democratic processat least in theory.

As an example, one possible cause for concern could be the use of agency emails to hold votes, with a departing Commissioners vote as a tiebreaker. This practice has been dubbed zombie voting.

Due Process. Sokol and Wickelgren suggest due process is lacking because stakeholders lack adequate comment. In particular, they lament the limited time the agency afforded stakeholders to respond to the FTCs plan to drop the Vertical Merger Guidelines. But thats not due process. Due process is a bigger thing in terms of formal adjudication and much less so in informal rulemaking. But we are not even talking about informal ruleswe are talking about guidelines. Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), there is no requirement for notice and comment. In the rest of administrative law, guidelines are not gospelotherwise, they would be rules subject to the Administrative Procedure Acts (APA) rulemaking requirements. Only in antitrust are they considered with such religious regard.

A Way Forward. Sokol and Wickelgren state, Commissioners should embrace procedural fairness principles of due process, transparency, and genuine openness to input. Such an embrace creates better evidence to shape outcomes. Issues with transparency and openness to input predate this administration: In many instances, antitrust enforcement agencies have bordered on the snarky. Transparency? They said, no thanks. Lack of transparency makes it easy for agencies to claim that they know better, because outsiders dont have all the informationa convenient Catch-22.

Sokol and Wickelgren continue: [T]he FTC should create substantive legitimacy. Deliberation on the substance requires acknowledging both the benefits and costs. That is not what has happened to date, unless the world only involves consumers, and perhaps not even then. The use of economic analysis has been more partisan than Sokol and Wickelgren believe. As an example, consider how some economic analysis contained in John Kwokas excellent book was attacked (even from within the antitrust agencies).

Sokol and Wickelgren next advise FTC leaders to use the expertise and experience of the FTC staff. I agree. But listening does not mean requiring things to stay the same. Any change will always encounter defenders of the status quo; if they are ignored, they might go into private practice. This has all happened before. The revolving door from agency to private practice and back again continues to spin. The only difference this time is that some are trying to change the status quo in very serious ways, and that has all the stakeholders very upset.

While some antitrust practitioners might be upset about these changes, consumers, workers, and anyone else not associated with the antitrust religion of consumer welfare might welcome them. It may be that such changes will improve democracy, as the Supreme Court continues to make sure that corporations have more voice in our government than people. Maybe thats what needs to change: As defense counsel rotates in and out of agency positions, economists make millions arguing that the mergers are efficient and dont harm consumers, agencies declare victory with questionable remedies to continue to maintain their budgets; for the stakeholders, antirust is working quite well. But it isnt working out so well for the rest of us.

For the rest of us, antitrust is broken. One could make the argument that the whole endeavor is inefficient, if we consider the money spent on lawyers, economists, and agency budgets compared with how little the antitrust agencies have done to stop mergers while completely ignoring monopolization. This failure is largely driven by hubris, stakeholder interests, and misguided faith in the religion of consumer welfare.

Maybe its the stakeholders who need to listen, for a change.

Disclosure: Darren Bush is a law professor and economist specializing in antitrust at the University of Houston Law Center. He has no cases before any antitrust agency. He served as a Trial Attorney at the DOJs Antitrust Division from 1998-2001. His views do not purport to represent the University of Houston.

Learn more about our disclosure policyhere.

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Populism at the FTC Upsets the Antitrust Religion of Consumer Welfare: A Reply to Sokol and Wickelgren - ProMarket

Election Day 2022 is still many months off, but already the primary season is shaping up to be a lulu. So much at stake. So many electrifying candidates albeit some less evidently qualified than others. (Dr. Oz? Seriously?) And scads to be learned about the unsettling state of American democracy.

High-profile races in two crucial swing states promise to be especially enlightening, offering a handy guide to the existential issues roiling the parties. The contrast could hardly be starker.

In Pennsylvania, the Democratic fight for a Senate seat features an array of contenders slugging it out over a slew of knotty questions involving policy and ideology, progressivism, populism, centrism and how or even if to woo blue-collar whites in deep-purple places.

In Georgia, the Republican battle for governor has been reduced to the singular, defining question looming over the whole party: Does the GOP still have room for leaders who arent Trump-addled invertebrates?

The outcomes of these contests will shake the parties well beyond the states in play. Its tough to overstate the importance of the Pennsylvania Senate race. With Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican, retiring, the state is considered the Democrats best hope for picking up a seat and retaining their whip-thin majority. But there is much debate over what kind of candidate has the best shot at victory.

The current front-runner is the lieutenant governor, John Fetterman. The former mayor of a busted steel town on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Fetterman has been on the national political scene for a while as a champion of Rust Belt populism. His profile shot way up in the wake of last years elections, with his frequent media appearances smacking down Donald Trumps election-fraud lies.

When the lieutenant governor talks, its hard not to listen. Standing 6-foot-8, he is bald, hulking, goateed and tattooed. He wears work shirts and cargo shorts and radiates an anti-establishment, anti-elitist vibe that his supporters say helps him connect with the rural and blue-collar types who have abandoned the Democrats in recent years. He presents more as a guy youd see storming the Capitol with his biker pals than a candidate espousing progressive policies like Medicare for all and criminal justice reform.

Hes known as a bit of a loner, and not all of his positions play well with progressives. (For instance, he opposes an immediate ban on fracking.) But he was a Bernie backer in 2016, and he is not above poking at his partys more conservative members. He vows that, if elected, he will not be a Joe Manchin- or Kyrsten Sinema-type centrist obstructing President Joe Bidens agenda.

Such criticisms are seen as indirect slaps at Fettermans closest opponent in the race, Rep. Conor Lamb. A Marine Corps veteran and former federal prosecutor, Lamb shocked and thrilled his party by winning a special election in 2018 in a conservative western district that went for Trump by nearly 20 points in 2016.

Lamb is an unabashed moderate, and his politics and personal style are decidedly more buttoned-down than Fettermans more high school principal than pro wrestler. He has expressed frustration with his partys left flank for advocating policies that are unworkable and extremely unpopular, such as defunding the police. He speaks kindly of Manchin, with whom he did a fundraiser this year. He contends that Fetterman leans too far left, and he characterizes himself as a normal Democrat who can appeal to working-class voters and suburban moderates alike.

There are other, lesser-known Democrats in the mix, too. A state lawmaker, Malcolm Kenyatta, hails from North Philly. Young, Black, progressive and gay, with a working-poor background, he has pitched himself as the candidate to energize the partys base voters, especially those who tend to sit out nonpresidential elections.

Commissioner Val Arkoosh of Montgomery County is based in Philadelphias upscale, voter-rich suburbs. She leans liberal on policy and has been endorsed by Emilys List. An obstetric anesthesiologist, she hopes to position herself as a sensible alternative to Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician who jumped into the Republican primary contest about two weeks ago. She is also betting that the growing threat to abortion rights will help her rally suburban women, whom she sees as a natural base.

Wherever this race ultimately leads, there will be lessons for other Democrats looking to compete in tough battleground areas.

The Georgia primary for governor could prove even more clarifying about the state of the GOP though not in a good way. The Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp, is running for reelection. But he is high on Trumps drop-dead list for refusing to help overturn the results of last Novembers election.

Desperate to see Kemp unseated, Trump lobbied former Sen. David Perdue, who also lost his reelection bid last cycle, to challenge the governor. Last week, Perdue entered the race. Trump promptly endorsed him, slagging Kemp as a very weak governor who cant win because the MAGA base which is enormous will never vote for him.

This contest is not about Kemps politics or governing chops. Both he and Perdue are staunch conservatives and fierce partisans. And Perdue is not some hard-charging outsider looking to overthrow the establishment or push the party to the right or redefine conservatism in some fresh way. In his announcement video, Perdue blamed Kemp for dividing Republicans and costing them Georgias two Senate seats. This isnt personal. Its simple, Perdue said. He has failed all of us and cannot win in November.

Perdue is correct that this is simple. But it is also deeply personal for Trump. This matchup is about the former president having reduced the GOP to an extension of his own ego, redefining party loyalty as blind fealty to him and his election-fraud lies. Whatever his personal aims, Perdue is just another tool in Trumps vendetta against Republicans he sees as insufficiently servile. The race is expected to be bloody, expensive and highly divisive all the things parties aim to avoid in a primary.

The GOP is already hemorrhaging Trump-skeptical, independent-minded officials at all levels. Just this month, Charlie Baker, the popular Republican governor of deep-blue Massachusetts, announced that he would not run for reelection. If Georgia Republicans take the bait and throw Kemp over for Trumps preferred lickspittle, it will send a clear message to the partys dwindling pockets of principle and rationality: Get out. Now. While you still have a soul.

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Michelle Cottle: The upcoming elections that could shake both parties - Berkshire Eagle

As the Capitol riot unfolded on January 6, Fox News hosts knew exactly how bad things were.

The president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy, Laura Ingraham texted to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Please, get him on TV [the riot is] destroying everything you accomplished, Brian Kilmeade wrote to Meadows. Can he make a statement, ask people to leave the Capitol? wrote Sean Hannity in yet another Meadows text.

The texts, revealed during a Monday hearing of the House January 6 Commission, were at odds with the hosts on-air comments on the night of the attack. Ingraham suggested that antifa supporters may have been responsible for the violence. Kilmeade took a similar line: I do not know Trump supporters that have ever demonstrated violence that I know of in a big situation. Hannity, for his part, asserted that the majority of them were peaceful.

This is tangible proof that some of Foxs marquee personalities knowingly lied to their audience about January. The lying began basically immediately, in the direct aftermath of a national tragedy.

This isnt the only issue on which Foxs dishonesty has been exposed. On one of the fundamental policy topics of the day, the pandemic, the rights most influential news network is saying one thing to its audience and doing another in private.

Fox Newss programming on vaccines and vaccine mandates has been relentlessly hostile. Yet more than 90 percent of Fox News employees are fully vaccinated, and the company has a vaccine mandate thats actually stricter than the one President Joe Biden has proposed for large corporations. Hosts tend not to mention this on air and, on the rare occasions that they do, they mislead their audience about it.

They are lying to their audience, and anyone paying close attention can see it.

These incidents speak to a deep pattern in modern conservatism, a parasitic relationship in which a super-wealthy elite preys on the fears of the conservative base for profit.

Last summer, political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson published a book titled Let Them Eat Tweets that diagnosed what they see as the central political strategy of the modern Republican Party. They call it plutocratic populism: a bitter brew of reactionary economic priorities and right-wing racial and cultural appeals.

The basic idea is that the super-rich and their allies are in the drivers seat of the GOPs policy agenda and what those elites want, more than anything else, are tax cuts and attacks on the social safety net. Recognizing that making the rich richer is an unpopular policy agenda, they have married their political fortunes to the forces of cultural reaction. The GOP wins elections by engaging in thinly veiled appeals to racism, xenophobia, and sexism; the super-rich win when those GOP majorities pass deeper and deeper tax cuts.

Fox News, which Hacker and Pierson call in their book the the epicenter of resentment politics, plays a crucial role in cementing this relationship.

Foxs programming is 24-7 conservative backlash politics, relentlessly focused on ginning up fear: fear of Democrats, of Black people, of immigrants, of feminists, of LGBTQ individuals, and even of college professors and students. Study after study has found Fox News has a profound effect on its viewers and American politics: It has helped Republicans get elected, pushed incumbent members of Congress to the right, and likely even facilitated the early spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

And yet, Foxs corporate structure is at odds with its actual product. The network is part of an international media empire owned by Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who has badmouthed Trump in public and in private. Its headquarters are in midtown Manhattan. The networks most aggressively populist host, Tucker McNear Swanson Carlson, is from a patrician family; his stepmother comes from the Swanson family of frozen food fame.

Fox, in short, is plutocratic populism incarnate the purest distillation of the Hacker-Pierson analysis of the GOP. Fox hosts lie about January 6 and Covid-19 because that is what they exist to do.

Of course, not all plutocratic populism is disingenuous. Some of the rights billionaires, like leading Trump backer Rebekah Mercer, appear to be true-believer culture warriors in addition to being plutocrats.

This is consistent with a separate body of political science research that finds that, on the whole, self-interest is less politically salient than partisan and cultural identity. Broadly speaking, people identify with a political party based on cultural affinities; once they do, they tend to bring their economic views in line with whatever the partys mainstream is. Thats part of why white working-class voters vote against social safety net expansions that would benefit them.

But there is at least some dishonesty going on in todays conservative movement, as the January 6 commission and Fox vaccine mandate debacle have exposed. And thats something that we, as a society, need to be honest about.

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Capitol riot texts from Fox hosts to Mark Meadows reveal the lie in the conservative movement - Vox.com

There are two very vocal sides to the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, which was passed back in 2017 by the Republican-led legislature and signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey.

Some say it did not go far enough in creating a punitive measure for violating the law, which imposes a $25,000 fine against cities or counties that remove monuments that have been in place for more than 40 years.

The cities of Mobile, Birmingham and Huntsville all have violated the law by removing monuments and have paid the fine.

Others insist it goes too far, given it takes away power from local governing authorities and transfers it to the State of Alabama.

One of those arguing the latter is outgoing State Rep. Mike Ball (R-Madison). Ball had opposed the measure in 2017 and insists the law remains an overreach to this day.

During an appearance on Mobile radios FM Talk 106.5, Ball urged listeners to get back to the American Revolution versus staying in the Civil War.

The thing is, weve gotten in a time and a place where politics has gotten so far polarized, he said. The extreme left, the extreme right they fight over each other. Right-wing populism, left-wing populism are solidly at war. And one of the things both sides like to do is they like to rewrite history to match their perspective. You know, my background I was an investigator. A win as an investigator is not winning your theory over other theories like it is in politics and law. An investigation is finding out what happened, what the truth is.

And so, there are efforts to rewrite truth and rewrite history according to how they want, Ball continued. And back about a hundred years ago, there was a movement here to institute, memorialize, romanticize the Civil War from the direction of one side. And theres another side now that wants to completely demonize one side over the other. And the side that is in charge was reacting to that. And when we reacted to that and passed the Memorial [Preservation] Act, we went way, way too far in this state, sanctifying these monuments. And they even went way farther than that. They took away naming rights of schools from school boards. And you know, it was a huge departure from bottom-up governance, which is one of the principles the founders of our country put in place.

We need to get back to the American Revolution as opposed to staying in the Civil War, he added.

@Jeff_Pooris a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor ofBreitbart TV, a columnist for MobilesLagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobiles The Jeff Poor Show from 9 a.m.-12 p.m.on FM Talk 106.5.

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State Rep. Ball: Memorial Preservation Act 'went way, way too far' - 'We need to get back to the American Revolution as opposed to staying in the...

(Written by Javed Iqbal Wani)

In the past year, farmers have demonstrated the force of popular determination against an arrogant and defiant government. The farmers movement has proved that the revolutionary spirit of the peasant had not diminished with the arrival of new networks of capital. It has established that peasant consciousness in the country remains intellectually sharp, socially sensitive and politically militant. As opposed to the image of the peasant as a marginal figure in history, the recent farmer protests have proved that they remain very much central to the discourse of democracy in India.

The tone of the Prime Ministers address on November 20, 2021, while announcing the decision to repeal the three farm laws highlighted his uneasiness with farmers victory and laid bare his refusal to admit that their perseverance has crumbled his pride. The Prime Minister has time and again resorted to imagery of the ascetic (faqir) to make his political posturing acceptable to a wider public. He aspires to gain a superior moral authority to conceal the shortcomings of his myopic politics. His reference to his own politics as tapasya (devotion/penance) requires some probing. When a government with all the power and authority at its disposal fails to crush a democratic and popular movement, it speaks volumes of the discipline and dedication of the movement. In the spirit of democracy and justice, it was the farmers whose protest deserves to be called a tapasya, because it brought back many foregone frameworks of inclusive and democratic politics in the face of various hardships. As opposed to riots becoming an increasingly dominant expression of collective action in India, the farmers movement made rights and inclusion in democratic decision-making the source of energy for itself. Against endless negative propaganda, police brutality, and shaming in the name of a religion, the farmers stood firm and responded with clarity, sincerity and steadfastness.

It is pertinent to note that the revolutionary spirit of the farmers was registered by the ruling dispensation as reactionary and anti-national only a little while ago. It is an improvement that the Prime Minister has recently declared them vacuous. His recent address declaring the repeal of the three farm laws put the onus of misunderstanding on farmers. If one pays attention to the layers of the Prime Ministers political message, his delayed apology does not appear to be aimed at addressing the suffering of the farmers but to make palatable the inability of his political power to achieve its goal. However, in the end, the determination of the democratic and popular outran the arrogance of those in power.

The farmers have instilled our confidence in some of the forgotten lessons in popular politics. The authority of the people never gets exhausted by the government. Governments tend to see popular protests as politically unsavoury and unjustified. However, popular politics unravels collective responsibility because it demands a response from the people, civil society, and the state. It provides agency to democracy because it makes the democratic and popular active rather than just being there, dependent on an institutional outside that is increasingly controlled and partial to the ruling dispensation.

As opposed to an increasing trend of populist politics which is inward-looking and exclusionary in nature, democratic politics is outward-looking and not threatened by inclusion. In fact, inclusion is the ethic of democratic politics. Mere dependence on jingoist nationalism where defining, classifying, humiliating, and exterminating imagined threats is the primary agenda leads to the obfuscation of real challenges that the polity faces. Popular democratic uprisings, in contrast, challenge ethnic visions of a nation, confront the narrow view that only unidirectional movement of institutional decision-making deserves legitimacy. Democratic politics steer the discourse back to the people by way of questioning legitimacy and authority and celebrating diversity and difference. On November 27, 2021, with the passing of the Farm Laws Repeal Bill, 2021, and the various subsequent written assurances from the government on the critical issue of MSP and protection from punitive measures against protestors, the farmers victory was etched in the annals of history. By ensuring the repeal of the three farm bills, the farmers have done a great service (seva) to the nation not only by saving the peasantry but democracy itself. The protesting farmers at Delhis borders and elsewhere have returned to their homes, leaving behind an assurance in the end, democracy has defeated despotism.

(The writer is currently an assistant professor at Ambedkar University, Delhi)

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Farmers and the defeat of populism - The Indian Express

The idea that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch is old and familiar, but like so many popular sayings, its unclear where the phrase originated.

While economist Milton Friedman is often credited as the man who popularized the ideathe notion that free lunches dont actually exist because someone always paysthe adage appeared in Robert Heinleins 1966 science-fiction novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress nearly a decade before Friedmans 1975 book featured it in its title. (The phrase is actually the title of Book 3 in Heinleins work, for which he received the Hugo Award in 1967.)

Historians, meanwhile, say the phrase had been around for decades prior to Heinleins book. Whatever its origins, the idea that theres no free lunchthat everything has an opportunity costis one author David Bahnsen says humans have not learned very well.

For this reason, Bahnsenchief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, a National Review contributor, and FEE supporterfeatured the concept in the title of his own economics book: There's No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths, released on November 9.

I recently sat down with Bahnsen to discuss his book and a range of economic subjects, including financial markets, cryptocurrencies, and the key to addressing poverty.*

Q: In the introduction of your book, you say many of the problems permeating economic teaching today stem from a flawed definition of what economics is. So lets start there. What is economics?

I define economics as the study of human action around the allocation of scarce resources. I think you get two components that are both individually well regarded as part of economics. Theres obviously a strong relationship between human action out of the Austrian tradition. And the idea of the allocation of resources being fundamental to what we mean as far as household management has a tradition going to Plato and Aristotle.

I like to blend those two ideas together. It captures the humanity of economics and the incentives in economics. In this definition you wont find anything that can be reduced to a formula or a mere econometric analysis. The focus is much more on the human person, and much less on mathematics.

Q: You mention Plato and Aristotle. In your book you collected some of the most timeless economic insights in human history250 quotes, to be precise. How relevant are these ideas today?

I personally believe that they are more important now than they ever have been. There is a certain timelessness to a lot of the wisdom that some of the great classical economists shared. Obviously you can go back to scholastics and the ancients from Aquinas to Augustine to Aristotle and Plato. There are certain nuggets of wisdom and truth there, but I mostly focused my attention on the classical economists.

Theres a lot on Adam Smith, a little from David Ricardo and Jean-Baptiste Say and some highly regarded 19th-century economists. But even as you come into the 20th century, whether its Milton Friedman or the supply side contemporaries like Art Laffer and Bob Mundell who recently passed awayeven guys like Mises and Hayek havent been gone that longthere was a time when these guys were all winning Nobel Prizes in economics.

Now the Nobel methodology has changed completely away from praxeology and the logic of human action to model-driven economics. I think its bad for the profession of economics, its bad for the academic discipline, but its even worse for the laymen and their understanding of how economics affects the real world because it strips out the wisdom of the masters.

And thats why I wrote the book and centered it around some of their foundational truths.

Q: You're considered one of the best financial advisors in America by Barrons, Forbes, etc. What do you make of financial markets right now?

I definitely believe that were living in a timewe have been for a while and likely will for some timethat were going to have to deal with the good and the bad of the Federal Reserve playing such a prominent role in the economy.

This was always one of the dangers of the monetarist school. Fundamentally, the monetarist always invited a higher role for the Fed into the economy, and we kind of have gotten it. More than just their administration of the money supply by their control of the interest rate, the Fed now has become a sort of mitigator of business cycle risks. When I look at financial markets now, I think thats mostly what were dealing with.

Why are equity market multiples at 22x or 23x earnings? Why is the 10-year bond rate at 1.5 percent, and why are investors totally okay with that? Why are real-estate investors willing to buy very significant real-estate investments for a 3 percent cap rate?

These things all seem quite expensive. But they are all done with a repricing of risk, and that repricing of risk is a byproduct of a Federal Reserve put [a put, referring to a put option, is a financial contract that allows the owner to mitigate risk]. We used to talk about a Greenspan put in the stock market, but I dont think thats adequate anymore. I think its become much more comprehensive. There is an expectation the Fed will be there to smooth out any disruptions that take place in the business cycle.

I think thats something investors have to understand. Theyre not getting the price discovery F.A. Hayek wrote about. Theyre not getting the clean allocation of capital Id like to see as an investor.

Now, I also dont want to bet against the Fed. I dont say this to take a blindly pessimistic position. We have to invest for what is, not what we want it to be. But we also have to recognize this is inviting a high degree of malinvestment and misallocation of resources. This requires us to be more prudent and more diligent in the projects we choose to invest in on behalf of our clients.

Q: You say there are major trends in economics today that should be resisted. One is the trend of collectivism as a means of alleviating poverty and inequality. Can you elaborate?

The left-wing risk is relatively well known. A greater invitation into socialism or quasi-socialism. A higher role of the central planner in the economy. But right now a lot of the right-wing populism were seeing is inviting a certain amount of authoritarianism. I think its doing it out of frustration. Theres a culture war issue, as well as cronyism and the way things are playing out in the economy.

Rather than attack subsidies and the regulatory apparatus, many have said if you cant beat em join em. That we need Big Government to work for us instead of them. Im concerned about that approach. When you have a good aim in mind and go about it with bad means, it usually doesnt work out very well.

My fear right now is that the populist economic ethos is going to embolden and empower the central planner. Its going to embolden and empower the collectivist.

My hope is that some of the principles Im inviting people to rediscover in the book can be persuasive. What we need to do is dig in our heels more around the principles of a free society we believe in, and not concede by just trying to switch the uniform of authoritarianism.

Q: I live in the Twin Cities. Minneapolis and St. Paul, like many other cities, recently raised the minimum wage. They also both passed rent control measures. Minimum wage laws. Rent control. Are these effective ways to fight poverty?

No, they are horrible ways to fight poverty. And the reason is explained through the principles that I believe need to be at the foundation of our economics. The knowledge problem leads to a significant distortion in the economy because we ask someone who doesnt have full knowledge of time and place circumstances to set prices.

When we set prices in a transaction, we take what could take place on a voluntary basis under a precondition of freedom, and we make it happen on an involuntary basis. That takes away clarity. It takes away price discovery. It takes away freedom. It takes away incentives for further developers. It could give false signals to produce.

If one believes that prices, including the price of rent, are packets of information, then rent controls take away information. And because I believe the greatest wealth-building activities in history come about by us adding information and knowledge and ideas to raw materialsthats where I believe wealth creation comes fromby distorting knowledge I think we effectively suppress the creation of wealth.

I believe that the intent of a lot of the policymakers is good, but I believe that free exchange in the economy will lead to the right calibration of supply and demand to set prices in a way that meets the needs of humanity. The government intervention is not just unnecessary, but counterproductive.

Q: Once upon a time this was basically Economics 101, wasnt it? So why are these policies coming back? Is it ignorance of economics or is it related more to the populism you mentioned?

The danger of populism is that it lacks a limiting principle. When youre content to work off a playbook of real principles in the way you develop an economic worldview and structure the scaffolding of what you believe as far as social organization, then I think youre less exposed to the arbitrariness of populism, less exposed to the potential abuses.

You say there was a time when this was considered Economics 101. I think its still Economics 101. Its just that some people have decided they dont need Econ 101. Theyll overlook the economic principle on behalf of a desired political aim and what feels right in the moment. Thats by definition what populism is.

Q: You write that class warfare is at an all-time high in the US. Why do you think that is?

If Im giving a gracious and empathetic answer, I think some of it comes down to the cultural ethos in the post-financial crisis. So many did an atrocious job of identifying the players in the financial crisis and providing proper and comprehensive cultural, political, and economic commentary as to what took place in what was the defining economic event of our lifetime.

Because we let others define that moment, were stuck with a narrative of the oppressor and the oppressed out of the crisis. The only difference is many on the right will claim the oppressor was the Fed or Fannie Mae or the government. Many on the left will claim the oppressor was Wall Street or the big banks.

The fact of the matter is we have this environment now where people believe these narratives. If youre 30 years old, your entire adult life has been bookended by the financial crisis and COVID. People see a system that has not worked for a lot of people but does seem to work for others. It exacerbates class aggravations.

Rather than digging our heels in against cronyism, against a relationship between Fannie Mae and K Street, against bailouts, against a monetary policy that serves to boost asset prices, against the subsidization of student loans that gives college administrators a blank check on how they move tuition prices, we saw more of the same.

A lot of frustrations young people have are frustrations I have. But their emotional intuition is to default to something that makes those problems worse, not better.

We have solutions that address what theyre frustrated about. We need to show that human flourishing is enhanced by free enterprise, but that message is not getting through. I blame those of us on the right who do defend free markets; were not defending them well enough.

Q: You bring up young people. They are facing a very different environment than you and I were. Any financial advice for them or tips for living?

I do believe ideologically that young people have been deprived of the ability to learn basic economics, basic finance. I want young people to have a strong self-determination, to believe in self government and the character traits and virtues that are necessary to have a fulfilling and rewarding life.

But when you get to practical finance and engagement with these circumstances, tenacity is the non-commoditized virtue. Young people cant be replaced by a robot who works harder than them. You can always have a work ethic that will make you desirable in the marketplace.

If I can talk to people before they go to college, Id say half of the people spending a quarter-million dollars on an overrated bachelor's degree from an overrated college could rethink that decision. Or at least have a little more specific strategy behind it.

For people who are already graduated or are already in the workforce, I say wealth creation comes from creating more than you consume. That is a tautology that is never going away. That will always be the story of economics, and thats the best way they can apply it to their own lives.

Q: The sustained inflation weve seen in 2021, combined with issues with the supply chain and labor markets, has resulted in a great deal of economic uncertainty. How precarious is the situation right now?

I am of the opinion that a lot of the inflation were seeing right now is heavily supply chain oriented. I think the velocity of the money in supply right now is so low and going lower that we do face a lot of Japan-like deflationary risk.

Its hard to feel that way when prices are doing what you see now, I know. But I think QE and low interests and other distortive measurements of the Fed have a diminishing return for their policy goals. And the excessive government spending has served to take away future growth, so it ends up putting downward pressure on velocity. But then you have an increase in demand for goods and services coming out of COVID, combined with a woeful capacity for productionfrom port disruptions, labor shortages, to the semiconductor problem, which is quite underrated as a problem.

So Im a little less concerned about Milton Friedman-like monetary inflation than I am of voluntary supply-driven inflation because we as a society are not producing the goods and services we need.

Im hopeful some of those things will start to correct. But Im not hopeful that the economic stagnation that theyve created through excessive doses of fiscal and monetary policy is treatable.

Were blessed to have somewhat better demographics, and somewhat better economic organic growth, than Japan. But if were going to continue at halfhalf!of our real GDP growth rate average for another 15 years, like we have the last 15 years, I think its totally unacceptableboth economically and morally. Yet that seems to be in store for us.

Im hopeful we can somehow get back on track, but right now were not even trying to get back on track. Were just debating how much worse we want to make it.

Q: Do you have any thoughts on cryptocurrencies? Are they a hedge against inflation? A revolutionary new form of money? A pyramid scheme built on speculation fed by the Feds money pumping?

I fear that Ill inevitably lose some part of the audience here, because its not a very popular viewpoint right now. But obviously I cant defend it as an inflation hedge when it has no intrinsic value. The argument many of us have made about money and currency for some time has been it has to be a stable medium of exchange. Anything that goes from $60,000 to $30,000 because of a tweet from Elon Musk is probably not a stable medium of exchange.

I think something whose primary utility is for ransomware criminals is probably not a stable medium of exchange. It will grow in its utility, I dont deny that, but fundamentally it doesnt have an intrinsic value. Therefore the question becomes how long regulators will allow it to function the way it does. I dont think that will be very long.

From an investment standpoint, whether or not one believes in the utility of the medium of exchange, why would the value of a coin inevitably go higher? The only answer for that is speculation.

That does make it more pyramid-like in my mind. Never in my investing life have I seen something end well when the majority of people doing it dont know why theyre doing it.

Q: Your book includes quotes from some of the greatest economic thinkers of all time. Mises. Hayek. Friedman. Sowell. Bastiat. Hazlitt. Do you have a personal favorite?

Ive actually been asked this question in other interviews and I have to say the same thing: I just cant pick one. Hayek at some periods of my life was so instrumental in my development. At other periods of my life Milton Friedman was.

In terms of my own sort of anthropology of economics, the way in which I view the human person and how central my belief about humanity is to economics, Im grateful to people like Father Robert Sirico at the Acton Institute. There are contemporaries like that in the book who are at the top of my list.

As far as the subject matter in the book that is nearest and dearest to my heart, it is about human flourishing and establishing our aim in economics. The material and spiritual flourishing which includes abundance, but also peace and balance and joy that the human person can have.

What is the economic structure that can most facilitate that? Thats an entirely different question than saying how can we get everyone to make the most similar amount of money to each other, this obsession with equity and wealth and income inequality. In trying to do economics as social justice, were trying to do something that is neither economic, nor social, nor just.

Q: That leads right into my next question. You write that a materialistic view of poverty alleviation dominates todays culture, one that does nothing to alleviate poverty. Whats a better way?

I believe that the number one thing we need to do when we look to alleviate poverty is, first, we need to define poverty and wealth. If poverty is the opposite of wealth, how do you create wealth?

As I said earlier, you create wealth by creating more than you consume. So do we solve poverty by having no supply-side solution, but only think about wealth redistribution?

My view is we need to focus on wealth creation. In a free society of free exchange where there is true respect for the dignity of the human person, wed never tolerate an approach that treats half of society like they're incapable of being productive, incapable of being creative, incapable of being innovativeand have them live off the largesse of the other half. I think its insulting and dehumanizing.

We want a system that creates more and more wealth creators. That is the solution to poverty. I want more people who produce more than they can consume.

*This interview was condensed and edited for clarity

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Economics, Finance, Populism, and the Fed: An Interview With David Bahnsen - Foundation for Economic Education