JD Vance Is Wrong: The Market Isn t a Tool – WSJ

On a recent podcast, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat asked Mr. Vance for an example of how his Catholicism influences his politics. His first instinct wasn t to cite the social issues typically associated with conservative Catholic political concerns abortion, immigration, sexual ethics but to launch a missile at the market. Well, I think one of the criticisms that I get from the right is that I am insufficiently committed to the capital-M market, he answered. The market is a tool, but it is not the purpose of American politics.

Mr. Vance indulges here in some sneaky sleight of hand. His answer to Mr. Douthat s question combines an obvious (though irrelevant) truth about the purpose of American politics with a total falsehood about the nature of the market. Nobody, not even these editorial pages whose longstanding motto is free people, free markets capitalizes the M in markets. The market isn t a proper noun, and it also isn t a tool. The market simply is. Nobody controls it. Nobody worships it, but only a fool ignores it.

Long before recorded history, long before people settled in cities and started building fruit stands, before Adam Smith, before Wall Street, before dating apps, before crypto before all that there was trade: I give you this, you give me that. Simple exchange is what makes a market. Not faith, not mantras, not brick and mortar. Wherever people come together to trade is a market.

The where doesn t matter so much as the what. Markets harness supply and demand to coordinate economic transactions between people and firms. They facilitate the free exchange of goods and services. They are mechanisms for shared prosperity based on freedom from coercion. They don t enslave us, they liberate us.

Not every market transaction is a simple exchange. Things can get complicated and complexity is the root of much market distrust. Confusion is easily channeled into anger, especially when political actors are eager and able to do the channeling. Miseducation is a contributing factor. Most Americans get their economics from philosophy professors, the movies, or the endless parade of ambitious hucksters on social media.

In Hillbilly Elegy, Mr. Vance writes that he learned about balancing a checkbook, saving, and investing in the Marine Corps. I don t know if he studied basic economics at Ohio State University or Yale Law School. He speaks as if he didn t as if he thinks politicians serving four-year terms can boss markets around.

That s not how it works. Markets, whether for cheap consumer goods or government bonds, can t be bullied into compliance with a political agenda. They aren t governed by the philosophies and desires of men like Mr. Vance. They are governed by the laws of economics the way the physical world is governed by the laws of gravity. You can moan about them all you want, you can lament the trade-offs they demand and the constraints they impose, but you can t ignore or wish them away. No amount of political will or spilled ink can overrule them. Supply and demand are undefeated.

via www.wsj.com

Matthew Hennessey

Yes, sadly the Marines and other branches give people the wrong ideas about economics. Economics is the social science of human behavior. It has a few basic insights but after that it gets very complicated. The market’s not a tool. It’s more like gravity that exists whether we like it or not. There are plenty of social philosophies that rely on ignoring gravity.