Vivek Ramaswamy addressed the National Conservatism Conference in Washington D.C. earlier this week and criticized those in the Republican Party who are advocating irresponsible economic policies, bucking many in the audience.
Ramaswamy’s speech centered on the “intellectual rift” in the “America First-National Conservative movement” between “the national protectionist direction of the future and a national libertarian direction for the future.”
“Both of them reject the historical neoliberal consensus on foreign policy, on trade, and on immigration, but for different reasons, and with very different implications.”
Ramaswamy argued that the “neoliberal” belief in absolute free trade resulted in a dangerous dependence on China. He invoked Friedrich Hayek, who Ramaswamy insisted “believed that it was perfectly appropriate for a nation, even committed to free trade, to not depend on an adversary to provide its own military equipment.”
He said that dependence on China has created a false moral equivalency between it and the United States, pointing out that corporations will criticize social issues in the U.S. but ignore human rights abuses in China.
Ramaswamy argued that, while the national protectionist view recognizes the danger of this, “it commingles those concerns with a totally separate concern about protecting American manufacturers from the effects of price erosion from foreign competition” and “imagines an industrial policy that allows us to use taxpayer resources to purposefully subsidize certain critical areas for American production.”
In contrast, the national libertarian view “is focused exclusively on eliminating U.S. dependence on China in those critical sectors for U.S. security.”
“If we're really serious about decoupling from China,” Ramaswamy said, “that actually means more, not less, trade with allies like Japan, South Korea, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Mexico, and other countries around the world.”
“If your top objective is to protect American manufacturers from the effects of foreign competition, then you're necessarily extending the time period it's going to take to actually decouple from China.“
Ramaswamy made clear that the national libertarian opposition to free trade with China is primarily a question of national defense, not economic policy.
However, Ramaswamy believes that the “most important difference of all between the national protectionist wing and the national libertarian wing” is their “attitudes to the regulatory state itself.”
While the national protectionists believe “in reshaping and redirecting the regulatory state to achieve objectives that advance the interests of American workers,” Ramaswamy says national libertarians advocate for “dismantling the regulatory state altogether, not because we don't care about American workers or manufacturers, but because we believe this is the way to best advance the interests of American workers and manufacturers.”
Ramaswamy criticized national protectionists such as Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who “believe in expanding the scope of certain agencies like the FTC” and “believe that Lina Khan is doing a good job” as commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.
“National protectionists believe that the failure of poorly-run companies in regulated industries like aviation and railroads means that we need more regulations to protect workers and passengers in those industries,” while Ramaswamy argues that “the regulatory state was the root cause of those failures in the first place.”
“I don't think we're going to beat the Left by adopting the methods of the Left. I don't care to replace a left-wing nanny state with a right-wing nanny state.”
“Every national conservative is against the weaponization of administrative power” to advance “social progressivism,” so Ramaswamy, rightfully, argues that it is intellectually incoherent to try and strengthen bureaucratic agencies in the name of conservatism.
Ramaswamy’s decision to buck the national protectionists was surprisingly bold and worthy of praise. The reckless collectivist economics advocated by individuals like Oren Cass, whose organization is bankrolled by left-wing groups to advance left-wing talking points, Sohrab Ahmari, a self-described New Dealer, and Vance are an attempt to fold progressive ideas into the Republican Party, which poses a danger to the conservative movement long-term.
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Ramaswamy's "national libertarian" vision fits well within the American conservative tradition and closely resembles the policies of "Old Right" figures like President Calvin Coolidge. This is in stark contrast to the self-identified conservatives who do not believe in limiting the power of government and, in many ways, take after the Democrats they claim to be against.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. While Ramaswamy's "national libertarianism" does not always effectively answer questions about foreign policy or immigration, it is actually conservative.