For decades, the Western right has accused its opponents of harbouring socialist schemes for centralized government control over the economy. Those schemes were contrasted with the imperative to empower market participants.
Socialism was contrasted with freedom, and centralized control was contrasted with decentralization. One path led to poverty, the other to prosperity.
Centralized economic power has often led to wide-scale economic policy errors, oppression, and widespread human suffering. Decentralized economic power means errors are generally smaller and more easily rectified, and decisions are brought closer to those directly impacted by them.
Most importantly, history has shown the strength of the market. It is not infallible, but compared to centralized systems such as fascism and communism, capitalist democracy delivers more freedom, prosperity, and human flourishing.
Defending the free market was not about defending a future unmoored from a set of core values. Rather, it was about respect for lessons learned over centuries of trial and error, lessons that helped inform institutions like independent central banks, dispersed authority, property rights, checks and balances, and a focus on policy evolution, rather than revolution.
Events have proven the Western right to be correct. At this very moment, a single leader, using power legislative authorities rightfully possess but are afraid to take back, is throwing the global economy into turmoil and paralyzing investment by imposing a fundamentally incorrect view of trade. That leader, despite being a billionaire who has long lived in gold-plated environs, is now echoing socialist rhetoric about consumers having too much choice.
That leader is increasingly unpopular and widely criticized by those who have even a decent understanding of basic economic principles. This should be a moment of triumph for the Western right, a moment when their views on trade, centralization of power, and the markets have been vindicated.
Unfortunately, that leader is U.S. President Donald Trump, the standard-bearer of the Western right. And at their moment of ideological vindication, much of the Western right has chosen to defend Trump’s socialist turn, a move that could erode decades of built-up economic credibility.
Consider these recent remarks from the U.S. President on trade with China: “Much of it we don’t need,” Trump told the cameras. “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”
Trump repeated the point twice in a recent NBC interview:
“I don’t think that a beautiful baby girl needs — that’s 11 years old — needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls, because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable.”
“I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five,” he said, adding, “we don’t have to waste money on a trade deficit with China for things we don’t need, for junk that we don’t need.”
Trump also falsely claimed countries pay tariffs, rather than consumers of imported goods.
“What people don’t understand is, and this is a lot, the country eats the tariff. The company eats the tariff. And it’s not passed along at all,” he added.”
Imagine Justin Trudeau, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, or Kamala Harris saying what Trump is saying about trade and consumer choice. Imagine they were demanding the power to impose tariffs on a whim and fundamentally misunderstood how trade worked.
Would the Western right be trying to find ex post facto justifications? Would they be saying centralized economic power and high tariffs needed time to work?
Or, would they be railing against ‘socialism,’ warning about centralization, and campaigning against ‘tyrannical state power’?
I think we know the answer.
By prioritizing adherence to Trump above adherence to principle, elements of the Western right are now associating themselves with the most socialist, anti-trade, anti-market U.S. administration in decades, an association that has left the pro-market and pro-trade lane open for centrist and centre-left politicians. Many of those politicians are gaining influence through opposition to Trump’s tariffs, building a new coalition of nationalist voters (voters angered by U.S. tariff policy toward their country), traditional centre-left voters, and pro-business voters who see the value of free trade.
Ironically, Trump’s socialist turn is being opposed by many of the same people the Western right once accused of being socialists themselves. Such is the price of selling long-term principles for short-term power.
Spencer Fernando
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