From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   ‘Progressives’ Want to Go Back to the 1950s   
   By Walter Russell Mead, May 1, 2023, WSJ   
      
   The Biden approach is politically shrewd, appealing to blue-collar Democrats   
   as well as greens and progressives. Many CEOs, however dubious they are about   
   the long-term consequences of growing government influence over the economy,   
   will see opportunity    
   in the subsidies Biden-style economic activism offers.   
      
   As my colleague Joseph Sternberg recently pointed out, many Europeans resent   
   the protectionist America-first subsidies built into the misleadingly titled   
   Inflation Reduction Act. But smart European opinion understands that in the   
   long run the new    
   Washington consensus will be a godsend to Brussels. Many Democrats have long   
   wanted American social and economic policy to become more European. That is   
   exactly what Mr. Biden’s new economic policy aims to deliver. It might   
   better be called the    
   Brussels consensus as the mix of green activism, state planning and labor   
   protectionism the administration embraces reflects classic European Union   
   views.   
      
   There are, of course, questions. Can bureaucrats generate brilliant plans for   
   industrial and technological growth that work better than markets? Will   
   policies that failed to bring social peace in countries like France block   
   Trumpian populism in the U.S.?    
   Over the past 20 years, American economic growth has substantially outpaced   
   that of the EU. Will conforming American economic policy to the model of the   
   slow-growth EU help the West keep pace with China? Will pressuring low- and   
   middle-income countries    
   to adopt more expensive energy policies while blunting their ability to   
   capitalize on low labor costs help the West find allies beyond the Group of   
   Seven?   
      
   The Biden approach is less innovation than nostalgia. There is little in it   
   that would surprise Walter Mondale. But to oppose Bidenism effectively,   
   pro-market Democrats and Republicans will have to do more than grouse about   
   the statism and crony    
   capitalism embedded in the administration’s approach. They need to develop   
   domestic and international economic policies that are equally shrewd   
   politically—and more likely to work.   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/articles/progressives-want-to-go-back-to-the   
   1950s-clinton-jake-sullivan-international-affairs-trade-labor-unions-a0894e38   
      
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