{"id":817,"date":"2012-01-19T08:52:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T14:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/?p=817"},"modified":"2012-01-19T08:52:20","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T14:52:20","slug":"blind-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/blind-spots\/","title":{"rendered":"Blind Spots"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I wrote in an early post, many conservatives have a blind spot when it comes to \u201cWall Street.\u201d In the heat of battle it is understandable why this happens.\u00a0 When defending a position against attacks, there is a reluctance to accept any criticism of one\u2019s position. To do so might be seen as a sign of overall weakness. But while understandable, such blind spots can lead one to defend what to others are clear errors, and thus undercut one\u2019s credibility.<\/p>\n

The conservative blind spot came up recently with Occupy Wall Street, and now Newt\u2019s attacks on Romney and can be seen in Dennis Prager\u2019s comments<\/a> on Hugh Hewitt\u2019s show attacking Newt Gingrich with comments such as \u201cFree is Free… Freedom allows for inequality\u2026 sorry gang time to grow up.\u201d<\/p>\n

One huge problem in all of this is that not every criticism of Wall Street, or big business is a call for less freedom, at least in terms of Government regulation or new laws.\u00a0\u00a0 This is what was particularly troubling about Prager\u2019s comments given that he has often made the point in the pass that sometimes there is a difference between what is immoral and what should be illegal.\u00a0 I would argue that this is particularly true when it comes to picking the next President of the United States.\u00a0 One could easily argue that a particular type of behavior is, and should remain, legal; yet is not something we want in a President.<\/p>\n

Frankly I do not see a whole lot of difference between Romney\u2019s attacks on Gingrich and Gingrich\u2019s attacks on Romney.\u00a0 It is what happens in a campaign. After all, these attacks, and a lot worse, will certainly be made by Obama and the Democrats later this year, so I would rather have them raised now to see how the candidates and the pubic respond. Next September is not the time to find out that a candidate cannot defend themselves. Those attacking Newt however, claim that his attacks on Romney are different in character, for they attack capitalism.\u00a0 Maybe they do, but maybe they don\u2019t.\u00a0 This brings us to the blind spot of so many conservatives.<\/p>\n

Capitalism, as an economic system, is driven by self-interest checked by two things: competition among the suppliers of goods and services, and real choice among the consumers of those goods and services. While capitalism does require a great deal of freedom, that freedom is not absolute, and while some of my conservative friends will cry heresy, capitalism can benefit from regulation, at least certain types of regulation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Often the liberal-conservative divide is seen as those who want more regulation (liberals) and those who want less (conservatives). Yet while often portrayed as such, that is really not correct. The problem is not how much regulation, so much as the focus of the regulation. The key question should really be does the regulation promote competition and choice or does it limit it.\u00a0 Ask this question and most regulation would go away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the failure to make this distinction is troublesome, for combined with the conservative\u2019s blind spot it means that conservatives cannot see what many voters see, and this allows liberals to falsely claim that conservatives only care about the rich.\u00a0 So let me risk an excursion into the land of heresy and point out a problem I see with \u201cbig business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0A key charge by the left is that the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer, and they cite as evidence for this the \u201chuge amounts of money\u201d corporate executives get paid. While I reject almost all of this argument, I don\u2019t completely reject it as there is a grain of truth here to which many conservatives are just blind.\u00a0 Real wages, wages adjusted for inflation, have declined over 16% since the 1970s, during the same period that executive salaries have exploded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now here I make a big distinction between those who own their own businesses, and management such as CEOs who ultimately are hired employees. When you own your own business you take the risks and should reap the lion\u2019s share of the reward.\u00a0 But those in upper management are often not owners, they are employees, and I see no capitalistic reason they should get lavish and ever increasing compensation packages with golden parachutes, while other employees\u2019 real wages decline.<\/p>\n

Some of my conservative friends will claim that it is just capitalism, but is it?\u00a0 To me the comparison of executive pay is closer to union pay than pure capitalism.\u00a0 Many conservatives are right to see that there is a problem with unions, as they distort the market place, allowing unions to demand wages and benefits higher than the marketplace would otherwise support.\u00a0 I would suggest that the same thing is true with corporate pay.\u00a0 When it comes right down to it, executive pay is not set by the marketplace; it is set by the other executives. Given the intermingling of boards of directors, there is very little to incentive to hold the line on executive completion, certainly not the same incentive as there is for the compensation of average workers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In short there is in effect a sort of an executive union driving up executive compensation pretty much the same way workers unions have.<\/p>\n

The knee-jerk reaction of many conservative immediately jumps to a condemnation of any government solution.\u00a0 There is probably a lot to condemn here, and in fact I would argue that previous government attempt to \u201cfix this\u201d have only made it worse.\u00a0 But condemning a solution and acknowledging a problem are two different things.\u00a0 To get a real solution, a problem has to be acknowledged and then analyzed. Unfortunately many conservatives will not even acknowledge that there is a problem, leaving it to the left to propose any solutions.<\/p>\n

More importantly, this is a problem that resonates with many people.\u00a0 Despite the praise of how much more productive worker are today, they see their incomes not keeping up with inflation, and they see the gap growing between workers and management. When conservatives refuse to acknowledge that a problem even exists, it rings hollow, and that only makes it all that much easier for Democrats to falsely portray them as the party of the wealthy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I wrote in an early post, many conservatives have a blind spot when it comes to \u201cWall Street.\u201d In the heat of battle it is understandable why this happens.\u00a0 When defending a position against attacks, there is a reluctance to accept any criticism of one\u2019s position. To do so might be seen as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12,13,24],"tags":[173,186,228,243,1994,340,486,533,570,630,2006,934,938,1024,1030,1075,1090,1109,1127,1356],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative","category-domestic-policy","category-economy","category-liberal","tag-big-business","tag-blind-spots","tag-capitalism","tag-ceo","tag-conservative","tag-corporate-pay","tag-executive-pay","tag-freedom","tag-gingrich","tag-hewitt","tag-liberal","tag-obama","tag-occupy-wall-street","tag-prager","tag-president","tag-real-wages","tag-regulation","tag-rich","tag-romney","tag-wall-street"],"yoast_head":"\nBlind Spots - Politics and Religion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/blind-spots\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blind Spots - Politics and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As I wrote in an early post, many conservatives have a blind spot when it comes to \u201cWall Street.\u201d In the heat of battle it is understandable why this happens.\u00a0 When defending a position against attacks, there is a reluctance to accept any criticism of one\u2019s position. 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