There’s a new kind of capitalism in the air, and Adam Smith wouldn’t like it.
It’s been around for a while, but it’s really gotten popular in the last several election cycles. This week, the ice-cream connoisseurs of Ben & Jerry’s — and, let’s be honest, kings of the best ice cream flavor, “The Tonight Dough” — released a new ice-cream flavor that’s a really poor disguise for their political leanings.
Today we launch Pecan Resist! This flavor supports groups creating a more just and equitable nation for us all, and who are fighting President Trump’s regressive agenda. Learn more and take action here >> https://t.co/Bi8YE1FvOZ pic.twitter.com/Kr6CKBX1sc
— Ben & Jerry’s (@benandjerrys) October 30, 2018
In a statement, Ben & Jerry’s said, “Ben & Jerry’s feels that it cannot be silent in the face of President Trump’s policies that attack and attempt to roll back decades of progress on racial and gender equity, climate change, LGBTQ rights, and refugee and immigrant rights — all issues that have been at the core of the company’s social mission for 40 years.”
The flavor is an attempt to slam the Trump administration. What better way to slam a president than through a private company’s messaging via its signature products? Ben & Jerry’s has always been a company open to advocating progressive ideas via ice cream. (Anyone remember “Imagine Whirled Peace”? Not my favorite flavor.) Ben & Jerry’s is the third-ranked ice-cream company in the U.S., with almost $500 million in sales in 2017. At almost $5 per pint, and with women like me who love ice cream as much as I love my children, it’s easy to see why.
Still, it’s a kind of hypocritical capitalism — a bigoted one, if you will — to make a living selling ice cream and, while you’re at it, champion ideas of politicians that actually hurt the free market.
Ben & Jerry’s robbing us blind with delicious ice cream while selling socialism is truly the antithesis of capitalism, and yet we are a country that advocates both free speech and the free market as much as we love ice cream with chunks of caramel and chocolate-covered potato-chip pieces. Of course, many blame Citizens United v. FEC for this kind of attempt to throw money into politics, or as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said, to let billionaires buy elections.
However, Citizens United isn’t the case that opened the floodgates to money in politics. It was there before. Not to mention, there’s something to be said for the transparent way Ben & Jerry’s is hitting Americans with a new ice-cream flavor disguised as a hammer to slam Trump. As former Justice Antonin Scalia said in McConnell v. FEC, “The premise of the First Amendment is that the American people are neither sheep nor fools, and hence fully capable of considering both the substance of the speech presented to them and its proximate and ultimate source.”
In short, however hypocritical it seems to be for Ben & Jerry’s to earn $500 million per year in pint-size packages of ice-cold, cookie-dough-covered socialist ideas, the answer isn’t to regulate this via legislation or the court system in a reprisal of Citizens United. The answer, like any good supply-side economist would say, is to let the market work this out. If people are really offended or frustrated that Ben & Jerry’s is knocking the Trump administration via ice cream, they should stop gorging themselves on it and purchase a product that aligns with their values. This puts the onus on the customer, as all good free-market concepts do.
This also makes customers like me feel torn. I love America, but I also love cookie dough ice cream. What will it be?
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
