Redstate

By Kevin Holtsberry Posted in Economy — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

OK, if you are a little tired of the Harriet Miers imbroglio raise your hand. (I just realized I can't see anyone's hands since I am writing this instead of speaking it to a crowd of live people. BTW, do you think this sort of sotto voice sarcasm works? Hello? . . .)

ANYWAYS, how about a little book talk to distract us from the impending doom of civilization via the appointment of a state lottery commissioner to a position on the highest court in the land.

The book in question is Steven Malanga's The New New Left. Malanga is a Contributing Editor of City Journal and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute where he writes about the intersection of urban economies, business communities, and public policy.

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The New New Left flows from his work at City Journal and most of the chapters in this book first appeared as City Journal articles. Two things result from this: 1) the book's theme is a little thin {is this really the "New New Left"} and relatedly 2) the chapter's are only loosely connected.

In my opinion, one should view this book as a collection of essays rather than as a stand alone book. If one views the essays as brief case studies and/or explorations of issues they are interesting and at time revealing. If you try to view this book as presenting a coherent argument for a "New New Left" for explaining how "American politics works today" one is going to be disappointed.

That said, the overall result is worth reading if you have any interest in how politics - particularly urban - are organized and where the left is getting its shock troops.

Malanga's basic point is this: politics increasingly pits interest group versus interest group rather than conservative versus liberal or red versus blue. To highlight this issue, he divides the electorate into two broad but crucial interest groups: the taxpayers and the tax eaters.

The taxpayers are the people who work in the private sector and contribute the bulk of the tax base that pays for city, state, and federal programs. The tax eaters are the organizers, union employees, and constituents of public sector agencies, non-profits, and charities dependent on the tax dollars that fund them. Malanga believes that the tax eaters have amassed enough power, particularly in the urban areas, to thwart taxpayer supported reforms.

Often using the public rhetoric of their idealistic liberal fore-bearers what these powerful groups are really doing is accumulating power and money for their own selfish interests. After the seaming failure of so much of the liberal big government platform (the success of welfare reform, etc.) these groups have rallied their members to fight for big government not as an idealistic - if mistaken - way to save the world but rather as a cold hard defense of their jobs and their control of the reins of power.

Malanga touches on a number of hot button issues from so called living wage laws, and the demonetization of Wal-Mart, to the politicization of higher education by unions, and the unscientific belief in tolerance and diversity (the "Creative Class") as a driver of economic growth.

In each of the chapters the story is similar. The tax eaters (unions, public sector workers, non-profit advocates, etc.) claim that their policy proscriptions are aimed at the betterment of everyone when in fact they are designed to help keep the money flowing and the power in their hands.

Those who demonize Wal-Mart would like to believe they are simply looking out for their fellow man. Malanga points out the unfortunate fact that Wal-Mart is a highly popular, innovative, and economically rewarding company. The average Joe isn't hurt by Wal-Mart but rather is given a place to buy things he can afford, get a job with a future, and provide a tax base for his community. No, most of what drives people to lash out at Wal-Mart are union workers who don't like the competition and snotty condescension by people who find the store "tacky" and whose wealth allows them to shop elsewhere.

Living wage campaigns are eerily similar. They are in effect campaigns to artificially raise union wages and drive out small businesses and charities while destroying the budgets of cities and communities. The tax eaters in both these examples will use strong-arm tactics, faulty economics, pseudo science, and demagoguery to get their agenda passed. Often further weakening their already wounded cities.

Malanga's antidote is simple: get government out of the way and let the market and entrepreneurs create wealth and community. Malanga' offers that cities that succeed are ones in which the government focuses on the basics (crime, infrastructure, education) and leaves the job creation to businesses that flourish in such an environment.

His hero is clearly Rudi Guiliani who courageously took on the tax eaters in New York and helped that city rebound.

None of this material will be shocking to political or policy junkies who have been following these arguments as they play out in cities and states across America and some of the writing is a little dry. But Malanga does a good job of breaking these issues up into digestible and understandable chapters.

As a result, The New New Left is a good primer for someone trying to get a handle on why government seems to be growing and why urban areas seem intent on ordering more "hair of the dog that bit you." The fact of the matter is that unions and other public sector groups have no incentive to seek smaller and more efficient government because they live off the dollars that governments dole out and their jobs are dependent on the arcane system of bureaucracy they helped create.

To wrap this up, The New New Left highlights a real problem for conservatives: the entrenched interest of the public sector who prop up bloated governments and yet whose public rhetoric is idealistic and framed as the "public good." Malanga doesn't offer any easy solutions but he does point to disturbing trend. If you are looking for some insights into the difficulty of revitalizing urban centers or you need an introduction to the menace of the public sector as a powerful interest group. This book is a good place to start.