LtE's 12/7 - Friday Afternoon Edition

Against Our ‘Service Economy’
By John M. Grondelski July 10, 2024

Last week, National Review ran an article saluting the Supreme Court’s abandonment of the “Chevron doctrine,” a principle of legal procedure dating from 1984 that said that when it is unclear what federal law requires, the courts should “defer” to the policies an executive department or agency adopts to implement that law. The demise of Chevron has generated yelps of complaint from the left, which used the principle to impose its interpretations of laws, especially because the left thinks Executive Branch agencies will be gelded from fighting pollution and the “existential threat” of “climate change.”

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I agree with 95% of the essay. But there was one thing I vehemently rejected: Pino attributes Cleveland’s cleanup to “technological advances leading to more energy-efficient methods of production and the gradual shift from a predominantly manufacturing economy to a predominantly services economy.”

Cleveland — and America — are not better off because of a “predominantly services economy,” even if that is the orthodoxy of the globalist left and right.

The globalist left, which ideologically doesn’t like national states because of its “global citizens” mindset, doesn’t care (except in election years when Michigan is a swing state) that manufacturing jobs are in mainland China. Climate fundamentalists don’t care that energy bought from Persian Gulf–adjacent countries is dirtier to produce than gas and oil extracted in the United States.

The globalist right, which isn’t so much hostile as indifferent to nation-states but is populated by idolaters of the Almighty Market, has no hesitation about manufacturing at Vietnam costs. When one points out that one’s American consumers need good paying jobs, without which they can’t afford those goods, the mercantile Marie Antoinettes tell us, “Let them learn code!”

The “service industry” hasn’t served America well.

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