Most dangerous in this regard is the endless call for good jobs for all American workers, which from the progressive left could translate guaranteed employment, high minimum wages, compulsory unionization, early retirement, and much more. Such calls from any quarter are always misconceived. The ideal social objective should never be to create jobs as such. It should be to let businesses create jobs that produce more in social value than the cost of the labor that goes into the job. As the old adage in the garment industry had it, “you don’t make up in volume what you lose on each piece.” Putting government subsidies into the political hopper reduces the likelihood of achieving that objective. Make-work and featherbedding are dangerous first steps down the wrong path. But if one president is allowed to disrupt markets in the international sphere, why can’t the next president do so domestically as well? Sadly, the harmful effects of subsidies and restraints on trade only compound one other. To keep the economy humming, remember that these are the twin evils in labor markets, no matter which president is at the helm.
© 2018 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University
--Richard Epstein