The Impending Marriage of Environmentalism and Protectionism
How lawmakers hope to make the U.S. resemble the E.U.
The European Union has enacted a carbon tariff, known as a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” (CBAM). Predictably, politicians stateside have become jealous of this new type of continental technocracy. It has proved appealing to environmentalist Democrats and protectionist Republicans alike.
This author discussed the CBAM recently in Townhall. Naturally, the CBAM will fail to achieve both its environmental and economic objects. The op-ed concludes, however, with a larger observation regarding the correlation between American freedom and prosperity.
Conceived in liberty, America’s comparative economic excellence has proved unrelenting and extraordinary. For example, since 1990, America’s share of the G7’s nominal GDP has spiked from 40 percent to 58 percent. Mississippi (America’s poorest state) enjoys an average income per capita (adjusted for purchasing power) in excess of $50,000 – which bests France. “In Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse, GDP per person (adjusted for purchasing-power parity) is $58,000,” The Economist reported in 2022. “That puts it level with Vermont, but far below New York ($93,000) and California ($86,000).”
Such exceptional prosperity is neither inevitable nor indestructible. The various theories of centralized economic planning each party espouses could, if implemented, handily drag America into economic mediocrity. Environmentalism and protectionism – despite their advocates’ fondest wishes – can kill productivity as easily as any other ill-conceived regulatory regime.
Americans should view the European regulatory apparatus rather as a warning of technocracy’s costs to prosperity than as an instruction manual.
Read the full piece here.
Some Wisdom
Though not the best thing ever written in the English language (that distinction probably belongs to something Shakespeare wrote), George Orwell’s essay on thinking and writing, “Politics and the English Language,” may be the best thing ever written on the English language.
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.
Some Beauty
Neapolitan artist Giuseppe Sanmartino completed this sculpture, known as “Veiled Christ,” in 1753.
Some Levity
"No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session."
So said Mark Twain. Or Gideon J. Tucker. Or someone else. Further investigation suggests the quote comes from Tucker, although he references it as a “saying,” so he likely did not originate it. Like many of history’s best quotes, this one has a murky origin.
But the following, which also bemoans congressional folly, most definitely comes from P. J. O’Rourke.
“The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.”
Sundry Links, &c.
More on the CBAM in theWashington Examiner: “America shouldn’t import Europe’s carbon tariff” (June 2023)