We aren’t ambiguous about where we stand on free markets. The 1955 mission statement from the first issue of the magazine said, “The competitive price system is indispensable to liberty and material progress.” Not nice to have. Not a good idea sometimes but requiring frequent suspension. Indispensable.
In the first monthly issue of the magazine last year, we reiterated our position: “Economic freedom and its associated elements—the rule of law, property rights, and social trust—are necessary to a free, just, and vibrant society that has ample opportunity for individual advancement.” Not optional. Not helpful with fine-tuning from government. Necessary.
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This stance on markets I just mentioned has never been a popular one. Self-described populists on the left and the right frequently assail advocates of free markets as either dupes or knowing accomplices of plutocrats. Never mind that large corporations are often enemies of free markets, using their influence to seek government privileges and in some cases backing the so-called populist groups pushing greater regulations.
Partly because of effective conservative political activism over the past 75 years, organized labor is nowhere near the power it once was. But it still lurks, especially in the public sector, where it pushes massive state- and local-government spending and wields outsize influence on elections. And the rest of the media parrot union talking points as “pro-worker,” despite 90 percent of American workers not being union members and plenty of the remaining 10 percent still wanting out.
Where big business or big labor team up with big government, freedom is sure to come under attack. This is something William F. Buckley Jr. understood well, writing in the conclusion to Up from Liberalism, “I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO.” Federal labor law already puts the government’s thumb on the scale in favor of unions, and corporations stray from their profit-making duties to pursue political programs they believe will earn them favor with government.
We stand athwart those attempts, as we ever have. You’ll hardly find a stronger or more thorough critic of ESG than Capital Matters editor Andrew Stuttaford, who through many a Capital Letter (subscribe here) has outlined and disassembled the ESG program more times than just about anyone.
NRI fellow Amity Shlaes educates us on the history of free markets in her column, The Forgotten Book. It turns out almost every anti-market idea has been tried before. She has unearthed the forgotten history of New Deal socialized agriculture, recounted how the United Auto Workers have always been a vanguard for social democracy, and noticed that supposedly right-wing critics of markets today sound a lot like left-wing critics from yesteryear.
We were one of the only conservative organizations to run a year-long celebration of Adam Smith’s 300th birthday, with our monthly series of essays on Smith’s thought and legacy. Our Adam Smith 300 series for Capital Matters included Nobel prize winner Vernon Smith, contributing editor Yuval Levin, Catholic University professor Catherine Pakaluk, and more writers examining the father of modern economics from a variety of perspectives.
Capital Matters publishes articles throughout the week from top economic-policy experts from countless organizations. Whether the federal government is trying to centrally plan the housing market through tax credits or use financial regulations to push the green agenda, you can read about it here. And as strong believers in federalism, we don’t ignore the states. You can read about dairy regulations in Oregon, New Mexico’s state budget, or tax reform in Iowa, just to pick three recent examples. And if you want some reading recommendations, our Capital Writing series of author interviews has got you covered.
Of course, as any free-market proponent knows, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. It costs money to defend free markets, and we’re grateful for your support in doing so. In addition to subscribing to NRPLUS for full access to all our articles and the elimination of nearly all of those pesky advertisements, there are two great ways to support our mission. One is to give directly to National Review, a (in theory) for-profit enterprise that engages directly in political advocacy. Contributions to the magazine and website are not tax deductible, but they are incredibly important to our work and, of course, much appreciated. Another is to make a tax-deductible gift to National Review Institute (NRI), the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit journalistic think tank created by WFB to support the NR mission, and to advance and defend conservative ideas.
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