Politics and Work Colleagues
(12/07/16)I generally don't discuss politics at work for the same reasons I don't generally discuss politics with my family. relationships are hard enough without divisive politics exacerbating tensions. I've written in past posts that my middle brother's kids were red state Obama enthusiasts (not sure whether they've changed over the past 8 years, but both of them started college majoring in the performance arts, where conservatives are an endangered species). But to be honest, I didn't even know their preferences, until my niece sent my Mom a political rant (at an obsolete email address) and cc'ed me in the process. The oldest of my sisters was conservative even during my salad days as a registered Dem. My Mom is a social conservative. I learned only in passing my third sister was in some GOP wives' group. A couple of nephews are liberty-leaning and have admitted to reading some of my posts (and disagreeing, without elaboration, on some things). My New England cousins are mostly Democrats; my mom and uncle were the children of the owner of a small mom-and-pop grocer, a small business Republican. For the most part, my siblings don't discuss politics, at least with me; they do know I have a political blog. (My blog readership would be way up if all my relatives read my blog.)
I almost never talk politics at work, even as a professor. But it would crop up in unexpected ways. When I worked in Brazil for a few months in 1995, one relative of a Brazilian client was obsessed of WalMart coming to dominate the economy, crushing the local competition and ranted at some length. I have a good Indian immigrant friend in Silicon Valley, who once served in the Indian military, and he could literally go on for hours on the nefarious former Pakistani President Musharraf.
I have met an Army veteran colleague in my current role. (I do not identify personal contacts as a general blog policy; my friends and family do not necessarily share my views.) He's rather opinionated over almost any topic you can think of. Recently, we had a rather interesting discussion but rather spirited differences on a variety of issues: Trump, tariffs, Presidents, original US political parties, institutional slavery, the Civil War and other topics. Not a typical argument one might have unless you're a history or political buff.
To be honest, I couldn't tell you how how the people at work voted; I think that most of them agreed that the choice between Clinton and Trump sucked. I suspect how they voted because there was a consensus that Clinton was unacceptable, period. They asked me who I was supporting, and I told them I'm libertarian and 97% of the country would vote against my choice.
Now my colleague had talked about other topics, including his support for unrestricted abortion. I had my fill of expressing my point of view recently and had no interest in the trite soundbites about pro-lifers trying to control women's bodies. Let's be clear: with freedom, there are consequences and responsibilities. Nobody is talking compulsory sexual activity, birth quotas, the right for a woman to have her tubes tied or to use preventive birth control. The kind of constraints we are talking about are similar in nature to the constraints on people not to violate the unalienable rights of others with acts of harm, destruction of property, etc.
What set me off on this recent occasion was when my friend spoke approvingly of Trump's threat of punishing firms who shift jobs out of the US and export goods home. There are all sorts of issues here, starting with equal protection: Trump doesn't have the authority to do this, and the Congress would never allow him. Moreover, it would violate existing treaties and invite retaliation under WTO rules. My friend countered that tariffs are legal. Yes, the Congress does have the power to tax, and tariffs were the original, primary way of funding the federal government. But arbitrary application of policy violates the rule of law and is intrinsically corrupt. What Trump doesn't say is inevitable foreign retaliation will adversely affect American exporters and their workers.
Mexico and China are two of our biggest export markets. Trump won't grow or sustain export markets by starting trade wars. And we aren't even touching several compelling economic reasons for opposing Trumponomics, in particular, the questionable tax revenue by pricing foreign goods out of the market, the regressive aspects of tariffs on lower-priced goods (i.e., redistributing wealth from struggling consumers to politically favored local suppliers), the fact that a large percentage of imported goods are resources used by American businesses: tariffs would make them even less cost-competitive,
Another bone of contention dealt with ranking of the President. My opponent was derisive of my challenging the historian rankings putting Lincoln, Wilson, and others at the top. I pointed out that historians prefer activist Presidents and don't look at the opportunity costs of not engaging in bad public policy. I also noted that Wilson, given his war, the federal income tax, and the Federal Reserve, among other things, made him unpopular with conservatives and libertarians. Lincoln, unlike most of the world, responded with the most costly, unnecessary war in US history. Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting? Many pro-liberty economists (e.g., DiLorenzo) question anti-trust policy; I pointed out the now archaic MCI-AT&T long distance wars, although my friend tries to spin it as the foundation of our Internet economy. Washington--consider the Whiskey Rebellion and the First Bank of the US, and while many cite his independence from political parties, he definitely tilted Federalist.
There was more to the "debate". I think most people would have snoozed over this conversation; I will give him credit for not engaging in the petty personal attacks you often experience on social media.
