YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: AOC’s Poor Understanding of America.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has little, if any, awareness of where money comes from—no knowledge of finance, of savings and investment, of creating a product or conceiving an invention that adds value to the economy. She operates in a stark and static universe without consequences and trade-offs, without growth or mobility. There are only victims and victimizers. And according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, she’s in fourth place in the 2028 Democratic primary.
Socialists have been getting economics wrong since at least 1848. There are several reasons. The link between individual effort and reward isn’t always clear. State action is visible; the operations of the market are not. Government takes dramatic steps, while the invisible hand—division of labor, specialization, comparative advantage, accrued interest, mankind’s natural tendency to truck and barter and innovate—improves our condition gradually. The unintended consequences of a policy, no matter how well-meaning, can be worse than the problem the policy is meant to solve.
Economics is counterintuitive. Few secondary schools teach it (they might want to start here). Most Americans learn the value of work, thrift and initiative—as well as the costs of taxation, regulation and inflation—through experience. That’s why Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a celebrity since she was elected to Congress at age 29, can’t distinguish between minimum-wage increases and overpriced croissants.
To be fair, she’s never had to.