This week Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released a preliminary summary of her grand vision for a Green New Deal. Prior to its unveiling, the youngest rising star of the Democratic Party had already managed to get the support of leading members of Congress, including all of the party’s current leading Presidential candidates. Unfortunately for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, the document was met with widespread ridicule for advocating policies such as building high-speed rail to Hawaii, eliminating combustible engines, and guaranteed government jobs – even for those “unwilling to work.”
Like FDR’s New Deal, the proposal would be a total disaster for the US economy. Also, like its spiritual predecessor, it’s a great illustration of what F.A. Hayek warned of his classical work the Road to Serfdom: a grand utopian plan for a military-like mobilization of the entire US economy, the inevitable result of which is economic ruin and loss of liberty.
The most refreshing part of the Green New Deal’s proposals though is how honest and transparent the document is – a rarity for Washington. The proposal makes its own comparisons to military plans, stating its objective is “to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2” and remarking at the government’s past success of outperforming expectations when it comes to the manufacturing of war machines. It doesn’t try to downplay the revolutionary vision outlined in the brief, nor even try to act as if this is some sort of policy that will pay for itself, instead it explicitly advocates for it to be financed through the monetary magic of the Federal Reserve.
It is in her honesty in which Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s true weakness as a politician lies.
After all, the very same class of political pundits and politicians – on both the left and right – that have decided it is safe to laugh at the freshman Congresswoman’s proposal are almost all guilty of promoting and supporting plans that are similarly absurd.
For example, AOC’s embrace of the idea that “we’ll just pay for it!” – a crudely articulated version of Modern Monetary Theory which has gained its own following in recent years – is certainly deserving of ridicule. Is it, however, all that more outrageous than the idea of negative interest rate or the massive expansion of central bank balance sheets that “serious” central bankers have embraced around the world?
Similarly, the sheer hubris of thinking that Washington central planners – in just 10 years – can re-arrange the entire US economy in a way to eliminate all carbon emissions is something so insane that it shouldn’t be seriously discussed in civilized society. Yet is it really all that more delusional than the idea that the US military could transform the entire Middle East into a bastion of neoliberalism, a view passionately defended by a number of “serious” pundits and policymakers who continue to get paid for their opinion?
Yes, anyone with a basic grasp of economics can recognize the amazing fallacies that exist within the idea of guaranteeing everyone, everywhere a job, food, healthcare, and housing – totally regardless of merit. Yet the current operations of the US government actively dismiss the well-understood consequences of prohibition, government subsidies, unfunded social programs, and arbitrary insurance mandates.
So yes, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is guilty of promoting stupid policy she doesn’t fully understand, the consequences of which will have very negative consequences for Americans of all types. She is deserving of public ridicule and in a better world would be soundly voted out for her severe ignorance.
She should not, however, be treated as a beltway outlier.
Her complete ignorance of economics simply means she fits
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