Men of the People

To mark the arrival of The Dispatch’s new website, Jonah invites Kevin Williamson back to ...

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To mark the arrival of The Dispatch’s new website, Jonah invites Kevin Williamson back to the Remnant for another nerdishly random conversation. They begin by discussing the oppression of the QWERTY keyboard, strange quirks of the free market, and the benefits of democracy, before turning to the legacy of the New Deal and pressing matters of rank punditry. Will the Remnant ever become the majority? Have Kevin’s anarchic instincts mellowed? And what does the future hold for The Dispatch?

Show Notes:

– Kevin’s page at The Dispatch

– The story of QWERTY

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  1. Avatar photo
    Rdbarris

    Jonah

    You talked a little bit about the Great Depression and whether the New Deal prolonged it.

    Well, yes and no.

    There is virtually 100% agreement now that the Great Depression was basically a monetary phenomenon. The money supply collapsed - in large part due to banking failures and the collapse of credit - at the same time that the demand for money increased dramatically because of uncertainty and fear. This supply/demand imbalance would have required a massive decrease in the level of prices to re-establish equilibrium, a decrease that would have doubtlessly caused a great deal of economic pain even in the best of circumstances.

    The New Deal had two impacts on this:

    - a beneficial impact because of FDR's devaluation of the dollar, which increased the monetary base, partially offsetting the collapse of the money supply; this was probably the most important policy change that FDR did to help the economy, BUT

    - a negative impact because many of FDR's policies were designed to slow/offset the adjustment to prices/wages that would have been otherwise necessary to re-establish equilibrium. (In fact, these detrimental interventions began during the Hoover administration, including through "jawboning," but they accelerated under FDR.)

    FDR also got lucky because the rise of fascism in Europe and the threat of war led to capital flight, including in the form of gold reserves, from Europe to the USA, which augmented the monetary base and helped offset the collapse of money. Ultimately, of course, this problem was "solved" by the US entry into WW2 which finally forced the Federal Reserve to do its job and greatly expand the money supply to help fund the war effort. It was this great expansion of the money supply that finally ended the Great Depression. It also explains why, contrary to the fears of many, the US did not relapse into recession/depression when the war ended.

    The economist Scott Sumner of George Mason is very good on all of this.

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  2. George.Olmsted

    James Farley

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    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    Messrs. Goldberg & Williamson, I thank you for your lively discussion.

    I am one of those cranks who thrust a fist into the air when Mr. Williamson confessed to being anti-New Deal. And his reference to Hayek regarding the usefulness of a social safety net was not inappropriate.

    But what Mr. Williamson & Mr. Goldberg missed in the discussion was the importance, in the analysis of this issue for America, of FEDERALISM. Okay, if we grant that there ought be some sort of government-funded safety net, despite the problems of centralized planning and magical thinking inherent in such governmental activity, the question remains: At what level, state or federal?

    And the answer should be: STATE, not federal.

    I grind my teeth when conservative talking heads whom I genuinely admire and mostly agree with -- and that's an understatement with respect to you two fellows! -- blow past this question routinely and without a moment's thought, because that moment's thought would prompt them to say, "Of course, I'm talking about a state-government provided safety net, as an augmentation to the far more rational, compassionate, and economically justifiable community programs that traditionally were run by churches, civic organizations, private charities, and other nongovernmental entities.

    And the consequence of this blind spot is that you routinely let progressive steal second base. You don't make them explain why this program or that program HAS TO BE federal, or even OUGHT TO BE federal. You're forfeiting some of the most potent objections, in other words, to the nonsense that comes from progressives in Congress.

    Thanks again, and carry on.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

      PS: AOC's most likely path to the presidency isn't by being elected to that office, but -- as is also true for Kamala Harris -- a nomination to run as VPOTUS on a ticket that wins, with a subsequent removal (through death or otherwise) of the POTUS with whom she ran. I note that AOC turns 35, the constitutional minimum age for POTUS & VPOTUS, a month before the 2024 election.

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  4. Pohl

    Great convo. I enjoyed the New Deal part, too, having read a lot about that when researching his fireside chats once upon a time. Most of those guys around him wrote interesting books, too—Moley, Tugwell, Ickes, too, if I recall correctly. FDR was a rare bird, thankfully.

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    Chevesl

    Great convo. Didn’t know my parents’ generation had yogurt in their haircare products. Also, KDub—you in Dallas?

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  6. Bobby D

    Thanks for continuing to hammer away at the NatCon movement. I’d been struggling to put my finger on what’s wrong with this movement. That’s because I was thinking of them as a conservative movement. Once you step back and recognize that it’s just a non-Marxist variant of socialism in which national, ethnic, and religious identity replace class warfare as the organizing principle.

    Andrew Sullivan recently interviewed both Ahmari and Yoram Hazony. Several things struck me.

    First, neither can articulate a coherent thought in the face of even the most modest of challenges. When something they say is challenged, they backpedal and then flip the script into a discussion about some straw man. You get the sense that both men know that they’re running a scam and are fearful that someone’s going to figure out that “national conservatism” is indeed just socialism.

    Second, both rely on revisionist readings of the American founding and of the Anglo-American legal tradition. By their telling, Jefferson and Paine were outliers and the rest of the signatories to the Constitution were devout Christians seeking to impose a particularly Christian ordering onto society. But we know that this isn’t the case. Nearly all of the Founders were Deists, and were Christian in only the most nominal sense. Further, Sullivan rightly calls out Hazony for marginalizing Hume (who had an immense and direct impact on the Founders’ thinking) in favor of more religious figures who said some of the same things (but who didn’t have much impact on the Founders’ thinking).

    Third, a certain kind of religious zealotry looms in the background for all of these guys. It’s apparent that orthodox Judaism is the organizing principle for Hazony’s thought. For Ahmari, a sort of traditionalist Catholicism fills the role. And for Rod Dreher, a sort of zealous Orthodoxy does the same. You get the sense that their chief objection to classical liberalism is that it permits people to opt out of religious devotion. So, every argument starts with the destination built in: Every road leads to a need to reorganize the national and social order around a traditionalist sort of Christianity. But it’s deeply dishonest to suggest that this is in line with the American founding or the Anglo-American legal and political tradition. This is why it’s difficult to debate these guys. They don’t come out and say what it is that their political movement is seeking to achieve, which appears to be something like a Cromwellian revolution. So, I guess it’s a step in the right direction that Ahmari is now owning to the fact that he’s a pro-life New Dealer.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Collin

    I share Kevin’s general disposition that much of American politics is demand driven. Social security isn’t unmodifiable or un-removable due to some secret cabal but because, it is popular. If the program were wildly unpopular, someone would be heading up the parade to remove or reform it. Yet, there are few people calling for that. Meaning, America’s fiscal issue are not the result of conniving politicians but of the desires of American voters. Not sure if that’s on topic, but I just wanted to say that.

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    Andy Napoli

    My recollection of the QWERTY-v-Dvorak keyboard debates, was that it was inspired not just by market failure, but by this concept of "path dependence" whereby an innovator who can first set the market standard, can effectively box out all future innovators. The debate gained a lot of salience during the early Internet growth of the 1990s and during the "Browser Wars" (remember "Netscape?")

    Said another way, there is a major "first mover" advantage for tech companies, and a tech company can gain enormous market share through this "path dependence" or "first mover" advantage, which can allow them to basically become a monopoly that can retard or thwart future innovation.

    I understood these arguments but I think the people who were attracted or obsessed by it, tended to be more suspicious of free markets and always itchy to invoke the need for government regulations. As if government regulations are ever going to *help* foster innovation....

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    Mmaughan0

    I like the "Winston's hiccup" name for the weird cutout in the Jordanian border because it implies he was drinking.

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      Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

      As if there were ever a time when he wasn't?

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    Theirnscott

    I agree with Merrijane below that it was my understanding that the QWERTY keyboard was designed to increase efficiency.

    But the real reason I write is to let Kevin know about "The Museum of Failure," if he doesn't already. I learned about it in a book by Oliver Burkeman named "The Antidote, Happiness for People who can't stand Positive Thinking." It's one of my favorite books.

    "The Museum of Failure" is not its real name. In Ann Arbor, MI is "GFK Custom Research North America." In the former car dealership are rows and rows of shelves of unique consumer products, all of them failures. One of them is Clairol's "Touch of Yogurt" Shampoo mentioned by Kevin. I suspect Kevin may already know about this place and perhaps the book. If so, then I recommend the book to my fellow Dispatchers.

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