Harris' authoritarian price controls lead to socialism

“Kamala Harris is not a communist, a socialist, or a Nixon,” Jill Lawrence of The Bulwark assures us.

OK. But are we secure?

As someone who regularly accuses progressives of being “communists,” I believe I can shed some light on why many voters have misconceptions.

For one thing, allocating prime-time airtime to avowed socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez at the Democratic Party Convention could send mixed signals to some independent voters.

The nomination of a vice presidential candidate who not only spent his honeymoon in Red China on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, but also once taught high school children that the Maoist system – one of the (if not The Is this one of the most murderous and inhumane regimes in history – a place where “everyone shares” and gets free food and shelter?

That wasn't helpful either.

However, you should definitely not make price control one of the pillars of your economic plan.

Kamala Harris is certainly not the first politician to propose controlling politically unfavorable prices. However, history has conclusively shown that price caps lead to shortages, panic buying, black markets, and a host of other unpleasant consequences.

If one tries to justify this policy by blaming the kulaks for “price gouging” and propagates the age-old idea that in competitive markets cabals of villains can band together and dictate prices, then alarm bells will ring.

There is not the slightest evidence that there is such a thing as “price gouging” – a term that is already conveniently elastic.

The grocery retail industry is one of the least profitable large companies in America. Its profit margin is consistently below two percent. This year it was even 1.18 percent, which is at the lower end of the historical profit margin.

While there is nothing wrong with making a good profit, consistent margins tell us that price spikes are caused by inflation and not some insidious conspiracy.

Until the government's economic shutdown during the COVID pandemic, food prices were low and continued to fall.

This is likely because grocery retail is also one of the most competitive industries in the country, with numerous national and regional chains, upscale supermarkets, discount big-box chains and online competitors such as Amazon.

And we are now supposed to believe that one day, when general inflation happened to reach a 30-year high, all the companies involved in the food retail trade got together and jointly decided to raise prices in line with the general rate of inflation?

They think we're idiots.

In an embarrassing defense of Kamala's plan on Axios, headlined “Don't call it price controls: How price gouging bans really work,” Emily Peck argues that “Harris' economic proposals are broadly aimed at helping middle-class Americans cope with higher living costs.”

Oh, is that what they're supposed to do?

Axios assures us that states already have harmless anti-price gouging laws in place for emergency use.

(Yes, these are also completely counterproductive. “Price gouging” during acute shortages helps to reduce panic buying.)

In order to emphasize the harmless and ubiquitous nature of the laws against “price gouging,” Peck is forced to rely on the expertise of the left-leaning Fordham. Law Professor Zephyr Teachout, since it is safe to assume that no self-respecting economist would publicly defend price ceilings.

This brings me to Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who argues that Kamala is not necessarily in favor of price controls, but simply a ban on “grocery price gouging” – although he knows for a fact that this is a myth.

Kamala’s plan is nothing more than a “populist political gesture,” explains the Nobel Prize winner in economics.

Since the presidential candidate has not laid out any concrete plans, we must assume that she still supports passage of Elizabeth Warren's Price Gouging Prevention Act, which, despite the assurances of Axios and Krugman, would give the Federal Trade Commission sweeping, unilateral federal powers to fix food prices. Our own Gosplan.

And if you believe government regulators will use that power wisely, I have news for you.

Therefore, it is undoubtedly a bad sign that Kamala wants to fight inflation with failed socialist policy proposals.

But let's not forget: The last time Harris promised to help fight inflation, she was the one who was the deciding vote in an attempt to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into an overheated economy.

It is fair to say that inflation is a complex and multifaceted problem for which no single institution is solely responsible.

But you don't have to be a socialist lawyer from Fordham to understand that the Biden administration has done everything it can to exacerbate inflation: ignoring warning signals, using parliamentary tricks to push through a huge partisan spending bill, and simultaneously undermining energy production.

The last I heard, Kamala was a member of that administration.

Did Harris propose food price caps because she is a staunch Marxist?

Unlikely.

The tendency of power-hungry politicians towards collectivist and zero-sum thinking in the economy is merely a sign of an authoritarian demagogue.

Kamala is not Stalin.

She's more like a mediocre Latin American dictator.

That's bad enough.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at the Federalist. Twitter: @davidharsanyi