ALT Text, longer than X's alt-text limit, please see the source: https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2026/06/13/multiple-parties-in-government-a-statement-of-the-problem/index.html

ALT Text: We do have a weapon, though. What is it that Trumpists seek to undermine more than any other thing? What is their kryptonite? It the capacity for any form of authority to emerge whose pronouncements resist being bought. The standards and ethics of our professions, imperfect and compromised though they are, remain a constant threat. They are a threat not because we are numerous, but because despite the firehose of shit they flood the zone with, the liberal professions are institutions whose core purpose is to distinguish virtues from falsehoods in each of their many domains, and when we do that well, a broader mass public might find our views persuasive.

ALT Text: Creating fiscal space, "financing the government", is not the only or main purpose of taxation. An equally crucial purpose is regulating the distribution of wealth and income. American policy is a catastophe in part because its wonk class has not publicly made the case for this function, which has left our tax policy and the discourse surrounding it incoherent. As long as we cede, to steal a leaf from Medlock, the case that taxes are a necessary evil we accept only to buy government services worth their cost, we won't have a decent society, because you can't have a decent society with dispersions of wealth and income level as great as we currently now accept.

ALT Let's say the US purchases $2T worth of imports, but only sells $1T worth of exports. That means the US sends to rest-of-world a net $1T. Rest-of-world has two things they can do with that $1T. They can (1) purchase more goods+services from us, which would eliminate the trade imbalance. Or they can (2) park dollars in US investments—Treasuries, stocks, bonds, bank deposits, whatever—to earn a market return on the difference. Those are rest-of-world's only choices! Our direct trading partner might spend the dollars on goods or investments from a third country, but then the third country—still part of rest-of-world!—faces the same two options. If the US taxes foreigners' investments, it reduces the attractiveness of option (2), and so increases the relative attractiveness of option (1). Rest-of-world will devote a greater share of its proceeds from exporting to the US to purchasing goods+services from the US, since its alternative—investing in US securities—is now a much worse deal.

ALT Text: If you insist upon balance and disfavor cross-border ownership, you restore scope for meaningful economic democracy, Rodrik's "mass politics". The neoliberal free-trade regime eroded democratic prerogatives primarily through its obsession with "non-tariff barriers". All kinds of government actions can affect trade or devalue foreigners' investments. Banning a dangerous chemical might constitute an "expropriation" from the multinational that manufactures it. An anti-smoking law might discourage imports and sales of Marlboros. "Sweatshop labor" is a non-tariff barrier from the perspective of nation-states that wish to offer strong labor protections. Joe Weisenthal points out, jokingly but accurately, that Europe's narrow streets disfavor US monster truck exports. [truncated, please see post for rest]

ALT Text: It is safe to say that Musk is not motivated by philanthropy towards English child victims of gangs of men of mostly British-Pakistani origin. The UK’s child grooming scandals date back more than two decades during almost all of which a Conservative government was in office. Musk had nothing to say then.