Win men by losing corporatism

Democrats, clearly having read me discuss why they need to win back young men who don’t have college degrees, have embarked on a $20 million program to do just that.

I’d have told them to move away from creating and expanding aid programs, create a plan for making more breadwinner husbands, fund YouTubers, and stop being weird for a mere $10 million.

More and more, I think the breadwinner husbands part is key. So I’ve been thinking about the policies Democrats could champion to get this accomplished.

I got an idea while reading the Institute for Justice’s economic liberty cases. I’ve loved IJ for a long time, but I need to thank Joe S for putting me onto these cases in particular.

IJ is suing FinCEN over a rule that favors large, incumbent businesses over smaller, newer competitors. While the former only have to report cash transactions over $10,000, the latter must report every transaction over $200.

“Know your customer” laws force private businesses to help law enforcement catch money launderers. You’d think this might reduce rates of pyramid scheming or wage theft. But it doesn’t, because government watchdogs ignore whistleblowers who can prove that huge multinational corporations like HSBC are laundering billions of dollars for traffickers. Instead, they jail small business owners for paperwork violations.

The main result of “know your customer” laws is not fewer crimes, but fewer businesses because it’s harder for smaller companies to comply with reporting requirements.

The IJ case is especially galling because they’ve saddled smaller companies with more reporting requirements than larger ones.

This is also in direct contradiction with what working class voters say they want, which is for it to be easier to start and run a business in the US. KYC laws are just one example of the hundreds of ways the US government makes it harder than it needs to be.

These rules often sound good on paper. But they actually insulate large, well-connected, incumbent corporations from having to compete on an even playing field with newer, smaller, more nimble upstarts.

This kind of “regulatory capture” and “corporatism” exacerbates market concentration. It’s helped create a situation in which fewer firms provide a greater percentage of the jobs, goods, and services that Americans use.

Market concentration is a major contributor to rising costs. Fewer, larger firms mean less competition, less innovation, more monopolization, higher prices, and lower quality. For example, market concentration is a contributor to food safety issues, the last thing we need while Measles McSqueaky guts the FDA.

Cost-of-living is a huge deal for working families. It plays a big role in who they vote for. And, right now, working families trust the Republicans more than the Democrats when it comes to how much they have to pay for the stuff they need to live.

Artificially reduced competition for workers also correlates with lower wages and worse working conditions, in similar ways and for similar reasons.

Rules like the one IJ is suing over saddle small businesses with costly paperwork and legal risk, while exempting big banks. This exacerbates market concentration, along with its associated ills.

Working families tell pollsters they want the government to make it easier to start and run a business in America. They want cheaper essentials. They want more and better jobs where they live.

Vigorously opposing these kinds of rules – along with the market concentration they worsen and the problems that causes – presents a tremendous opportunity for the Democratic Party to do the right thing for working families and male breadwinners without hurting anyone else in the process. Unless you count “making it harder for incumbents to rent-seek” as hurting. Which I don’t.