Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:
Editor:
Announcing his endorsement of Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis accused Nikki Haley of offering “a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism” (“Ron DeSantis Drops Out of the 2024 Presidential Race, Endorses Trump,” January 22). This accusation is rich. Mr. Trump has as his signature issue the shielding of American producers from foreign competition. Because producers who would be coddled by these special privileges are overwhelmingly large corporations such as steel makers, auto producers, appliance manufacturers, and agribusinesses, Mr. Trump’s protectionism is corporatism to its core. Ms. Haley, in contrast, promised in your pages back August of 2022 a different path (“Free Enterprise, Not Central Planning, Will Beat China,” August 15, 2022). She correctly argued that America’s economy will prosper best with free enterprise – that economic system in which government metes out neither special privileges nor special penalties.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
