I like Jim Webb, even if the Kossaks do too, and while he ran a worse campaign than he should have, he ran a good enough one to win.
I’m happy that he’s started his Senatorial career with a shot across the bow in the WSJ on the increasing ossification of American society:
America’s elites need to understand this reality in terms of their own self-interest. A recent survey in the Economist warned that globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other “First World” nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that “unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash” in America that would take us away from what they view to be the “biggest economic stimulus in world history.”
More troubling is this: If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their interests. The “Wal-Marting” of cheap consumer products brought in from places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our national interest.
The good news is that he gets that there’s a problem. It’s a problem that I’ve written about more than a few times, and see as one of the two or three biggest ones we face today…behind Islamism, in case you’re wondering.
The bad news is that he’s walking close to the line of economic nationalism – and when I think too far down that path, I can’t decide if I want to point him at Smoot-Hawley or King Canute. S’not gonna work.
But there are things we can and should do, in tax policy and corporate governance policy to temper the advantages for the managerial class (and the investor class) in wage-shifting. But I need to finish my Iraq post first…
I also read it and liked it. Though economic protectionism CAN work and DOES.
Japan is plenty protectionist and manages to maintain a healthy economy for the most part (their biggest problems were not protectionist but crony driven financial institutions). China is horribly protectionist and is experiencing massive growth.
Like anything you can go too far but protecting critical jobs, skills and industries is something both China and Japan do routinely. They also don’t let masses of poor people in to drive down wages.
Jim Webb? Another Zell Miller in the making. He’ll be out of the party in a few years. There is simply no room for his kind of thinking and Hillary, Kerry, Teddy, Boxer and Feinstein will deal with him as they dealt with Miller.
The Netroots infatuation with Webb will be nasty, brutish, and short.
Don’t know how good a Senator he’ll be, but he will definitely stirr the pot.
Marc, they’re interrelated. Globalization is a factor driving Islamism and the relative advantage of ownership over labor. Additionally, some of the policies that have freed cash for among other things the salaries of top management have made us less secure.
I disagree with Jim, protectionism and cronyism are interrelated. Any business that is protected from competition by the government has a significant interest in its relationship to the government which it had best reinforce through favor sharing.
“They also don’t let masses of poor people in to drive down wages.”
Drive down wages? are you kidding? wages are down already, that’s the point.