Bashing bad ideas from the White House and Capitol Hill is one thing. Nina Easton realizes, and explains in her latest Fortune column, that Republicans also must rebuild support for free markets as they seek a return to power:
Fairness might be a good place to start if Republicans want to find the inner capitalist in voters angry at big business. Americans instinctively favor free markets.
As [University of Chicago economist Luigi] Zingales writes, “Until recently Americans stood out for their acceptance of basic market principles and even for their tolerance of some of the negative side effects, such as marked income inequality.” In other words, the class warfare rhetoric coming out of middle America is pretty atypical in modern times. Most Americans haven’t minded seeing the other guy get wildly rich as long as they felt they had their own opportunities to succeed.
What also appeals to Americans are calls to inject fairness back into the marketplace. Today’s taxpayer-funded backstops suggest a market that is tilted toward the survival of the big, wealthy, and powerful.
