Earlier this year, Fox News host Tucker Carlson sparked a spirited intra-conservative debate about the Right's fidelity to free market capitalism, the perils of a consumer culture, and the opportunities and limits of public policy.
Over the course of a 15-minute, widely circulated monologue, the primetime firebrand harnessed the spirit of our political moment. Sounding equal parts Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren, he lamented the plight of the working and middle classes, questioned whether cheaper consumer goods are an accurate barometer of prosperity, claimed that anybody who equates the health of a nation with its GDP is “an idiot,” and scorned what he considers to be a self-serving ruling class with no loyalty to the people it governs.
“We do not exist to serve markets,” Carlson declared indignantly. “Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.”
Read Full Article »
