Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are capitalist, not socialist, success stories. Julia Howe and Anthony Kim debunk a popular socialist talking point:
Denmark ranks as the 10th most economically free country in The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, which cites free-market policies and regulatory efficiency as reasons for the high standard of living. Sweden is ranked 15th and Norway 23rd, both with similar descriptions of thriving private sectors and open markets.
These three countries are clearly not operating under centrally planned economies, or their economic freedom scores would be significantly lower.
Second, the success of these countries is clearly based on a capitalist foundation, and it predates the expansion of social programs. Sweden, for example, became a wealthy country in the mid-20th century under a capitalist system with low tax rates.
Social programs and high tax rates were not implemented until the 1970s, which caused the economy to significantly underperform and unemployment to rise.
In recent years, Sweden has been privatizing socialized sectors, such as education and health care, cutting tax rates, and making welfare less generous. Even though tax rates and government spending remains comparatively high, open-market policies generate the revenue to support the spending.
[Julia Howe and Anthony Kim, "Why Democratic Socialists Can't Legitimately Claim Sweden, Denmark as Success Stories," The Daily Signal, August 10]
If you don't like how other people vote, imagine that their votes determine a larger number of issues. That's what socialism will bring, as Conor Friedersdorf attempts to explain to leftists:
Popular control is finally realized! So: How popular is Islam? How many Muslim prayer rugs would the democratic majority of workers vote to produce? How many Korans? How many head scarves? How much halal meat would be slaughtered? What share of construction materials would a majority of workers apportion to new mosques?
Under capitalism, the mere existence of buyers reliably gives rise to suppliers. Relying instead on democratic decisions would pose a big risk for Muslims. And Sikhs. And Hindus. And Jews. And maybe even Catholics.
Right now, under capitalism, vegetarians and vegans have more options every year. But there aren't very many of them. Five percent of Americans are vegetarians. Three percent are vegans. Would "the workers" find a societal need to produce vegan meat or milk substitutes? No one knows the answer. [...]
So, young leftists: Would you prefer a socialist society in which birth control is available if, and only if, a majority of workers exercising their democratic control assents? Or would you prefer a society in which private businesses can produce birth control, per their preference, in part because individuals possess economic rights as producers and consumers, the preferences of a majority of people around them be damned?
If contraception at every CVS and Walgreens sounds better than "popular control," you may be a laissez-faire capitalist, or at least recognize why democratic socialism can be a nightmare for many sorts of people.
[Conor Friedersdorf, "Democratic Socialism Threatens Minorities," The Atlantic, August 9]
Policing the internet for offensive speech is a fool's errand. But, writes David French, there is a body of standards that social media companies could apply to their platforms instead:
The good news is that tech companies don't have to rely on vague, malleable and hotly contested definitions of hate speech to deal with conspiracy theorists like Mr. Jones. The far better option would be to prohibit libel or slander on their platforms.
To be sure, this would tie their hands more: Unlike "hate speech," libel and slander have legal meanings. There is a long history of using libel and slander laws to protect especially private figures from false claims. It's properly more difficult to use those laws to punish allegations directed at public figures, but even then there are limits on intentionally false factual claims.
It's a high bar. But it's a bar that respects the marketplace of ideas, avoids the politically charged battle over ever-shifting norms in language and culture and provides protection for aggrieved parties. Nor do tech companies have to wait for sometimes years long legal processes to work themselves out. They can use their greater degree of freedom to conduct their own investigations. Those investigations would rightly be based on concrete legal standards, not wholly subjective measures of offensiveness.
Private corporations can ban whoever they like. But if companies like Facebook are eager to navigate
speech controversies in good faith, they would do well to learn from the centuries of legal developments in American law. When creating a true marketplace of ideas, why not let the First Amendment be your guide?
[David French, "A Better Way to Ban Alex Jones," The New York Times, August 7]
Fuel economy non-change will have no impact on global warming. The Trump administration has canceled a scheduled increase in Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards. Automakers will be marginally freer to make and sell vehicles they think consumers actually want. Environmentalists are criticizing the move, but how much will it really add to global warming? The answer, Marlo Lewis writes, is zero degrees give or take a few thousandths of a degree 82 years from now:
Specifically, under the agencies' revised standards, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration would reach 789.76 parts per million in the year 2100 instead of 789.11 ppm—an 8/100th of a percent increase.
Assuming conventional ("consensus") climate modeling, the extra 0.65 part per million of carbon dioxide would increase global average annual temperature by 0.003°C in 2100. Three one-thousands of a degree Celsius is 27 times smaller than the margin of error (0.08°C) for measuring changes in global average temperature. So, the climate impact of the Trump proposal would literally be undetectable under current scientific methods.
More importantly from a policy standpoint, an unverifiable bump of 0.003°C in global average temperature 82 years from now would make no practical difference to weather patterns, sea levels, polar bear populations, or any other environmental condition people actually care about.
[Marlo Lewis, Jr., "Trump Revision of Obama-era Fuel Economy Rules Is No Climate Disaster," Competitive Enterprise Institute, August 10]
How much did tax reform save in compliance costs? Erica York and Alex Muresianu write:
The simplification of the tax code will lead to economic savings thanks to less time spent filing. Using estimates of how many hours it takes taxpayers to comply with certain forms, we can estimate the value of time saved by certain reforms made by the TCJA. Specifically, the reduction in filers owing AMT liability and the simplified process of filing individual income taxes could greatly reduce compliance costs for certain households.
In tax year 2015, 10.3 million forms were filed for the AMT, though only 4.5 million ended up owing any AMT liability. It is estimated that only about 200,000 will owe the AMT under new thresholds; however, approximately 1 million individuals may still need to file the forms to determine whether they owe. According to the Internal Revenue Service Taxpayers Advocate Service, filers who face the AMT spend almost twice as long complying with the tax code than filers who do not face the AMT. In 2017, the average total time spent filing a Form 1040 was 15 hours. Using this information, the decline in AMT filers translates to approximately 135 million hours saved, or in dollar terms, $4.6 billion.
Additionally, the doubling of the standard deduction and subsequent move away from the itemized deduction will also result in tax compliance savings. The IRS has estimated that the average time to complete an individual tax return will decrease by 4 to 7 percent. This would reduce the time of 15 hours spent filing Form 1040 to an average between 13.95 and 14.4 hours per Form 1040.If we expect 150 million individual income tax filers, this translates into a total time savings anywhere from 90 million to 157.5 million hours. Converting this to dollar terms, savings could range from $3.1 billion to $5.4 billion. [Internal citations omitted.]
[Erica York and Alex Muresianu, "The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Simplified the Tax Filing Process for Millions of Households," Tax Foundation, August 7]
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