Irving Kristol famously wrote in 1978 that we might offer “two cheers for capitalism”—an insight borrowed from E.M. Forster’s similar suggestion about democracy. The phrase is a call for restraint among supporters of free-market economics. Kristol himself said he and his fellow neoconservative intellectuals had learned to respect “the power of the market to respond efficiently to economic realities while preserving the maximum degree of individual freedom.” But he also urged conservatives to consider where and how unencumbered markets failed to deliver and to consider that some intervention—limited and narrow—could be healthy. Thus, two cheers, but only two.
What was once a warning to temper unbridled conservative enthusiasm for the free market might now be repurposed as a call to arms for advocates of market economics. Witness one detail from the New York Times‘s report on Donald Trump’s speech to Carrier employees in Indiana Thursday, where the Republican president-elect praised the heating and cooling manufacturer for its post-election decision to keep around 1,000 jobs at its Indianapolis factory from being outsourced to Mexico.
On the campaign trail, Trump frequently called out Carrier’s proposed outsourcing specifically. According to the Times, the president-elect called the company’s CEO a week after the election to urge Carrier to find a way to keep some of those jobs in Indiana. When Carrier announced around half of its workforce would remain in Indiana, Trump claimed the credit.
At the plant on Thursday, Trump praised Carrier’s decision while repeating his willingness to threaten American manufacturers with high tariffs on imports for companies who ship jobs overseas. Indiana governor Mike Pence, the incoming vice president, was also in attendance. A longtime conservative in good standing, Pence identified a notable culprit: the free market.
Here’s the Times:
This invites a question: Will Republicans in the Trump era even muster one measly cheer for capitalism?
