South Bend mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg continues to embrace progressive liberalism over the utilitarian leftism overtaking the Democratic Party, this time with his response to the Bernie-backed proposal for “free college” (whatever that means).
BUTTIGIEG on free college: Americans who have a college degree earn more than Americans who don’t. As a progressive, I have a hard time getting my head around the idea a majority who earn less because they didn’t go to college subsidize a minority who earn more because they did
— Stephanie Murray (@StephMurr_Jour) April 3, 2019
Naturally the Left is taking Buttigieg’s refusal to toe the emergent party line in stride.
goooooo fuck yourself https://t.co/PKH7yuZkOK
— lvl 45 chaos potus (@thetomzone) April 3, 2019
Buttigieg’s response, as well as the vitriolic backlash to it, further exemplifies the growing Democratic divide between welfare-favorable liberalism, which is powered by a free market, and the utilitarian leftism which seeks to regulate and tax the free market out of existence and ultimately centralize the economy.
Bernie and AOC have become the Pied Pipers of the Democratic Party, cajoling sitting United States senators into endorsing a federal jobs guarantee and effectively nationalizing our energy industry (8% of the economy) and our healthcare industry (one-fifth of the economy). Now they want a “free college” bill which would cost half a trillion taxpayer dollars in the first decade alone.
Buttigieg’s answer distills the very ethos of what liberalism is supposed to be: offering welfare to those in need, funded by those who can afford it because of the economic growth that results from a relatively free market. His grievance with “free college” — namely that it screws over low-income Americans forgoing college just to maximize the number of Americans who do — precisely diagnoses the injustice of utilitarian Leftism.
Yesterday, I noted an emergent rift among Democrats, citing as an example Andrew Yang’s rejection of an equivalence between economic value and human value. Yang’s opt-in Universal Basic Income intends to offset the risks of creative destruction in the economy — an explicit welfare program — without penalizing market forces and putting economic growth out of existence.
Buttigieg, perhaps the other truly interesting candidate in the Democratic primary, has inadvertently highlighted the same divide, issuing what could be called a most progressive liberal refutation of free college, only to be deluged with left-wing backfire. Buttigieg mustn’t back down, but rather continue to forge his way through the lonely liberal path in the 2020 race.
