July 03, 2025

Its Defenders Need To Understand That "Capitalism" Is Not An "Ism"

July 03, 2025/ Francis Menton

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on June 30 (July 1 in the print edition), editorialist Matthew Hennessey advocates that “Capitalism Needs Champions.”
Reacting to the victory of avowed socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral primary, Hennessey says that the electoral result indicates that the defenders of capitalism are doing a poor job, and need to step up their game:
Let Zohran Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York serve as your periodic reminder that capitalism is in dire need of able defenders. Socialism has more cheerleaders than it deserves, considering its record of consistent failure. Markets need champions too. This is always true, especially now. . . . [T]he problem isn’t capitalism. The problem is complacency.
I don’t disagree. But there’s another problem for defenders of what its enemies call “capitalism.” The problem is that capitalism is not an “ism.”

June 30, 2025

Settler-Colonialist Zohran Mamdani Calls For "Seizing The Means Of Production"

June 30, 2025/ Francis Menton

Last week I invited readers to get a good laugh out of New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s plan to avert impending energy disaster by green-lighting one nuclear power plant that optimistically might solve 5% of the problem when it is ready to operate in the 2050s.
Now this week brings an even superior farce: A video clip has emerged of our settler-colonialist Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani calling for “seizing the means of production.”
Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic primary has led researchers to dredge up a treasure trove of his old tweets and video clips, each one more ridiculous than the next. An excellent roundup can be found here at Legal Insurrection.
Some choice examples include: “VioIence is an artificial construct"; “Under capitalism, housing is a commodity from which landlords & developers extract huge profits while our communities suffer eviction, foreclosure & displacement.”; “We need to dramatically curtail the power & presence of the NYPD.”; and “[A] statue of Columbus remains in Astoria, in defiance of the values of humanity, empathy & justice that we stand for.”
But my favorite is a clip from a speech Mamdani gave at a Democratic Socialists of America conference in 2021.

April 08, 2025

April 08, 2025/ Francis Menton

While I have spent the past couple of weeks writing about conspiracy theories and the Kennedy assassination, the rest of the world has been consumed by the news of President Trump and his big tariff gambit.
After talking at length during the campaign about imposing a new and expansive tariff regime, Trump announced the details of his big move on April 2 — tariffs on everything, from all countries, of at least 10%, ranging up to 50% or more on some countries (e.g., China) and certain products. All of this is to be done by Executive Order, said to be based on a declaration of “emergency” under a collection of pre-existing statutes (the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977; the National Emergencies Act; and the Trade Act of 1974).
The stock markets have reacted with turmoil. Various indices were down 10% or more over the past week, and, after initially gaining, have fallen further today. Liberal media outlets, including the New York Times gleefully foresee impending economic damage. (From today: “Investors overwhelmingly believe that Mr. Trump’s tariffs, and retaliation from U.S. trading partners, will lead to higher prices, slower growth and possibly a global recession.”).
Regular readers here will not be surprised to learn that I am not a fan of what Trump is doing on the tariff front.

November 18, 2024

November 18, 2024/ Francis Menton

If you believe the messaging of the Trump transition, big cuts in U.S. government spending are coming. Announced cabinet appointments include several who are opponents of the mission of the agencies they will soon be heading. A new Department of Government Efficiency is to be created, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, with instructions to take an ax to wasteful programs.
But, assuming that some big cuts actually get implemented, you know what inevitably comes next: Because all government spending is (foolishly) counted as a 100% addition to GDP, the cuts first get recorded as a decline in GDP. Economists on the left (e.g., Krugman) then immediately scream that the cuts have failed, the country has gone into recession, and the people are suffering.
In recent U.S. experience, the Republicans have never had the political fortitude to stay the course.
But let’s look at the latest news from Argentina.

September 18, 2024

September 18, 2024/ Francis Menton

China has proudly proclaimed itself to be a Communist country ever since Mao Zedong came to power in the late 1940s. I understand the term “Communism” in the context of a country like China to mean a socialist (state-directed and controlled) economic system with the additional element of political repression allowing no dissent from official orthodoxy.
China’s economic history is a bit more complex than just 75 years of tightly-controlled socialism. Its economy languished (including the usual mass deaths and starvation) for the first 40 or so years of Communist rule.
Next, under party leader Deng Xiaoping and successors from the mid-1980s for about 30+ years, China allowed a substantial private economy to emerge and flourish. During those years it experienced rapid economic growth, and in that very short period of time its economy became the second largest in the world after the U.S. (however, more like 70th place if ranked by per capita GDP).
Then in 2013, current strongman Xi Jinping came to power. In the most recent decade under Xi’s rule, the political repression has been greatly ramped up, the central planners have reasserted their pre-eminence, and the private economy has been gradually strangled.
So how is China faring under its most recent regimen of tightly-controlled socialism, central planning, and state-directed investment?

August 23, 2024

August 23, 2024/ Francis Menton

Here in the U.S., we are accustomed to economic growth almost every year. Look at a chart of U.S. GDP over the course of the last century, and the impression is of near-continuous and extremely robust growth. Here is such a chart from USA Facts, based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (Commerce Department).
This pattern of continual growth is unfortunately not true for all countries. For an extreme case of the opposite situation, consider Venezuela.