In its Monday editorial “Next Steps on Energy,” The New York Times criticizes the president’s proposals concerning oil that he made in his State-of-the-Union message on January 31. Its criticism is not aimed at the actual failures of the president in connection with his proposals, such as his description of Americans’ consumption of oil as an “addiction” and his resulting failure to state the need for expanded oil drilling within the United States—and freedom from the environmentalist-inspired government intervention that prevents it.
Another, potentially far more serious failure of the president’s speech was his advocacy of the use of taxpayer money in support of alternative fuel and automotive technologies. Even though the funds he requested may be modest by the standards of present-day government spending, they will be taken as a starting point by others and have the potential for being substantially increased in future years.
No. The Times criticizes the president because his proposals do not go far enough in failing to uphold the rights of American citizens, and in further violating them. It declares: “The real question is not whether Mr. Bush’s proposals are going to make life difficult for some people but whether they are tough and adventurous enough. The answer is plainly no.”
The Times’standard of accomplishment is apparently making life difficult for some people. And it’s better from its point of view to make life more difficult for more people than the president seeks to do. Thus, it wants “tougher,” more “adventurous” proposals than he does.
The only reasonable meaning that can be attached to “tougher” governmental action is more governmental coercion to compel more people, more often to do what they otherwise would choose not to do, or to prohibit more people, more often from doing what they otherwise would choose to do. One wonders why The Times cannot find room for the right of the individual man (or women) to choose the kind of vehicle he will drive and how much oil or other fossil-based fuel he will consume. Why does it seem like the only right to choose that The Times, and so much of the rest of the “liberal” establishment, is willing to recognize is the right of women to choose to have an abortion? Shouldn’t the freedom to choose apply across the board, to everyone, short of violating the equal right of others to choose how to employ their persons and property?
Not according to The New York Times. In a bizarre corruption of the concepts of “incentives” and “market,” it attacks the president for failing to propose the kind of “program” it wants.
But the biggest shortcoming is the total absence of a program that would deliver any of these dandy new technologies to the marketplace. By program we mean a uniform set of incentives — what the economists call market signals — that would drive American industry to build the more fuel-efficient vehicles and the cleaner power plants that we need.
For vehicles, there are two ways to get there. One, favored by most research groups specializing in energy, is to greatly strengthen the fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks. The other, favored by many economists, is to enact a substantial gas tax. We like both. One way or another, through regulatory or market mechanisms, the country would soon be driving cars that were far more fuel-efficient.
The kind of “incentives” The Times wants the president to offer is greater use of the “incentive” to avoid being fined or imprisoned. That’s what will make the auto industry achieve greater “fuel-economy” and the utilities build power plants different from the ones they would otherwise build. Yes, in some cases, it also wants the government to offer money—subsidies. But the money is taken from taxpayers, who are given the “incentive” of staying out of jail as their reason for paying the additional taxes that will provide that money. And additional taxes, of course, is exactly what The Times asks for.
In its view, higher fuel prices resulting from higher taxes constitute using the “market mechanism” to provide a “market signal” to consume less fuel. Here The Times casually neglects the fact that the “market” that has a “mechanism” and provides “signals” is the market free of government coercion—that is, free of precisely what The Times wishes to introduce into it.
The Times idea of a “market mechanism” and a “market signal” is comparable to a dictator’s notion of the role of the press in the publication of election results. The dictator wants to use the press to announce his version of the outcome of the election.
We have markets for automobiles and for the fuel to power our automobiles. On those markets, the public has again and again expressed its choices. It wants a large number of large automobiles, and when it’s prohibited from getting them by such means as government-imposed “fuel-economy” standards, it wants large numbers of SUVs. It wants a supply of fuel sufficient to power its automobiles to the extent it chooses to drive them.
To borrow further from Ludwig von Mises: Like a dictator who is unhappy with the outcome of an election, The Times is unhappy with the outcome of the choices of tens of millions of American citizens expressed in their purchases of motor-vehicles and fuel for those vehicles. It contemptuously dismisses the market signal that is being flashed with the power of an aircraft searchlight into the eyes of anyone who is not blind, that the American people want more oil and energy and are willing to pay profitable prices to have it produced. It cavalierly describes the administration’s willingness to allow some additional drilling for oil in Alaska as “ill-advised,” “meaningless,” and a “fixation.” Again and again, it joins with the rest of the environmental movement, of which it is a leading part, to frustrate the public’s choice for more energy of all kinds, energy that the American people are ready, willing, and eager to pay profitable prices for and which the oil, coal, natural gas, and atomic power industries would eagerly produce if not prohibited by government intervention inspired by the environmental movement and applauded by The New York Times.
Like a dictator who is dissatisfied with the choice of the citizens, The Times again and again urges the dispatch of the police to change or prevent the outcome that the people want.
It dares to close its editorial with the assertion, “This [more government regulation and more taxes] is the right direction, whether the administration wants to go there or not.”
The role of the administration is totally secondary.
The primary consideration is the direction the American people seek. As they’ve demonstrated in the market day after day, year after year, they want the vehicles and the fuel they buy, and they want more of them, at lower prices, not less of them at higher prices. The right direction for the government of the United States is to respect the freedom of its citizens to choose and the choices they’ve made in the market. It is the opposite of the policy advocated by The Times. It’s the direction on which the United States was founded, the direction that is enshrined in its very foundation: namely, the “The Right to the Pursuit of Happiness,” a right held by each and every individual and exercised, in large part, every day in choosing what and how much to buy and what and how much to produce and sell. The government of the United States was established to protect this right, not to violate it.
The New York Times is a malevolent, alien influence, one that is hostile to the United States’ very reason for being.
This article is copyright © 2006, by George Reisman. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that the author’s web site www.capitalism.net is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved.
{ 12 comments }
It’s even worse than that. One of the greatest ironies of American political life is that the one area in which liberals favor “choice” actually involves the complete negation of choice on the part of one of the key participants!
At least one Republican has seen the light from Times Square: Congressman Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, in a column titled “The Next Conservative Energy Policy,” argues that “[c]urrent U.S. energy policy and the President’s Advanced Energy Initiative are too modest and overly focused on the goal of increasing domestic production of oil and alternatives to support increasing oil consumption.”
Instead, Bartlett says:
“Conservatives should recognize that unless we have a national energy conservation program with the commitment, breadth and intensity of the Apollo moon mission and the Manhattan Project to create the atom bomb, our country is unlikely to achieve the goal of replacing ‘more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025′ and even less likely to break our oil addiction.”
Gee, I’d hate to see what a “liberal” energy policy would look like!
Having debated many people on the left over the years, I can guess at what the NY Times editorial staff would really like to see, but are afraid of opening calling for: ration tickets for gasoline.
Either the president and the times are spectacularly stupid or spectacularly crafty. Rising oil prices are already driving people toward driving less and trading down to smaller/more efficient cars. Either they haven’t noticed, or they are simply positioning themselves.
Vince Daliessio,
Spectacularly stupid is the likely answer.
However, I can tell you that I have pointed out many times that if oil has an upper limit to its supply the rising price of it will force the changes to alternatives, without any government intervention whatsoever. This argument, while uncontradicted, falls on seemingly deaf ears. Why? Higher prices mean that those with higher incomes get to continue using gasoline, while those with lower incomes have to switch to the alternatives. Their egalitarianism will not allow for such an outcome. Everyone must suffer equally.
I’m sorry to go off topic but I believe it is important that we do not call these people “liberal”. They do not seek to promote liberty but rather to restrict it. They are more properly called socialists, fascists or leftists. John Locke was a liberal, John Kerry is not.
“The New York Times is a malevolent, alien influence, one that is hostile to the United States’ very reason for being.”
This is true. And the same can be said of the United States Government.
I can guess at what the NY Times editorial staff would really like to see, but are afraid of opening calling for: ration tickets for gasoline.
Don’t we already have those? What are those little green things I always have to hand over when I buy gas?
Peter,
True, but some have more than others, and all get to use gasoline as they please rather than how the NY Times would like them to.
Vince Daliessio states:
To which Yancey Ward responds:
As tempting as it is to look at Bush and agree with this assessment, I think it is dangerous to assume stupidity on behalf of the government officials. To do so is to take their stated goals at face value. Much of what government does appears stupid when rational thought is applied the problem of achieving their stated goals, but when one considers that these people have devoted their lives towards gathering dominion over others, then these stated goals can be considered as quite calculated to convince naive but well-meaning people to legitimize further power grabs on their behalf.
A similar argument could be applied to the Times editorial staff if one considers how these people mix with government elites. I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m certainly wary of it. They may simply feel that they are naturally more intelligent than the unwashed masses and that we should accept their benevolent hegemony for the good of mankind. That certainly lends credence to the “Spectacularly stupid” conclusion….
In any case, I don’t mean to nit-pick, but I see many references to the stupidy of government officials and I think that it is a dangerous underestimation of a powerful foe. The collectivists are making steady inroads against individual liberty, & they are working together to do so. As individualists, I don’t think we can afford to laugh at “bumbling government”. Inefficient for sure – for reasons most on this blog understand very well. If we are not to live in thrall to ego-driven power mongers & self-styled socialist guardians of humanity, we must look past their rhetoric & address their real strategy behind the public feints.
Otherwise, I think your comments are spot-on, Yancey. As usual, I might add.
Elf,
Thank you for your kind comment.
You make a good point. It reminds me of a Star Trek: Next Generation episode in which the Enterprise encounters a space-faring species that seems moronic. The Enterprise crew treats the aliens kindly, but with a touch of contempt and amusement. Of course, when the aliens kidnap one of the crew and demand the transfer of new technology, the amusement and contempt ends. The aliens really are of low intelligence, but were still greatly underestimated, and they were very capable of carrying out their goals despite their limitations.
Elf and Yancey;
Here we run smack-dab into the middle of what drives and guides those who seek to prosper by force and theft – relative intelligence tells us nothing about their actions or motivations. The fundamental difference between the political and the truly entrepreneurial person is a moral one. I allowed that the Prez and the Times might be misstating the case out of craft. Certainly they are smarter than many who believe that economics does not intrude upon the market for gasoline.
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