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March 10, 2009

Um, No - We're Not Governed "In A Way That Is Entirely Consistent With Free-Market Principles"

By David Sirota

What's not a good thing is Obama effectively validating the right wing's frame. In going out of his way to insist he's for the "free market," the president is signaling that he believes that the "free market" must always be worshiped and publicly glorified, even though this is an historic opportunity to reframe the entire debate on far more pragmatic, less ideological, terms.

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Published on OurFuture.org (http://www.ourfuture.org)

Created 03/09/2009 - 11:43am

Following an interview with the New York Times in which he was asked about socialism, President Obama called reporters back [1] to tell them:

"It was hard for me to believe you were entirely serious about that socialist question." Obama later said: "I think that it's important just to note when you start hearing folks throw these words around that we've actually been operating in a way that is entirely consistent with free-market principles."

Obviously, that last part is patently absurd.

Throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at private banks is a lot of things - it's somewhat socialist in that public money is intervening in the market, though really it's far more authoritarian capitalist. But one thing it is not is "entirely consistent with free-market principles."

And really, so much of what our government has always done is entirely inconsistent with free-market principles. Our trade policy, for instance, includes all sorts of protectionist measures (patent and copyright protection, for example) and market subsidies, but prohibits Americans from purchasing lower-priced medicines from abroad. Our national security apparatus is plagued with no-bid (ie. anti-free-market) contracts. Anti-trust enforcement - critical to a free-market - has been gutted in the last generation. The list goes on.

Now, let me say the obvious: While in the aforementioned examples, the brushing aside of free-market principles has hurt the country, it's good news that some of Obama's proposals aren't "entirely consistent with free-market principles" - because in many cases, "free-market principles," left to their own devices, can have catastrophic consequences (see meltdown, 2009 economic). It's a good thing, for example, that Obama promised during the presidential campaign to create a publicly-funded option for universal health care. Likewise, it's a good thing that parts of the Obama administration seem more interested in considering bank nationalization.

What's not a good thing is Obama effectively validating the right wing's frame. In going out of his way to insist he's for the "free market," the president is signaling that he believes that the "free market" must always be worshiped and publicly glorified, even though this is an historic opportunity to reframe the entire debate on far more pragmatic, less ideological, terms.

I'm not saying he has to go out there and say he's a socialist (which, empirically, he most decidedly isn't) - but I am saying that there's a big political risk in his continuing to act as if the right's artificial economic frame must always be respected. That behavior legitimizes the "free market" metric - it says he believes he should be judged on that metric (ie. how "free market" a given proposal is), instead of being judged on other metrics (ie. how well a proposal works) that are far more important.

Links:
[1] click here

Authors Bio:

David Sirota is a full-time political journalist, best-selling author and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist living in Denver, Colorado. He blogs for Working Assets and the Denver Post's PoliticsWest website. He is a Senior Editor at In These Times magazine, which in 2006 received the Utne Independent Press Award for political coverage. His 2006 book, Hostile Takeover, was a New York Times bestseller, and is now out in paperback. He has been a guest on, among others, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and NPR. His writing, which draws on his extensive experience as a progressive political strategist, has appeared in, among others, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Baltimore Sun, the Nation magazine, the Washington Monthly and the American Prospect. Sirota was a twice-a-week guest on the Al Franken Show. He currently serves in a volunteer capacity as the co-chairperson of the Progressive States Network - a 501c3 nonpartisan organization.

In the years before becoming a full-time writer, Sirota worked as the press secretary for Vermont Independent Congressman Bernard Sanders, the chief spokesman for Democrats on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, the Director of Strategic Communications for the Center for American Progress, a campaign consultant for Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and a media strategist for Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont. He also previously contributed writing to the website of the California Democratic Party. For more on Sirota, see these profiles of him in Newsweek or the Rocky Mountain News. Feel free to email him at lists [at] davidsirota.com Note: this online publication represents Sirota's personal views, and not the official views of the organizations he works with.



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