The Crisis of Good Intentions

From Paris to Palo Alto, ‘clean and green’ policies punish the poor.

Almost everywhere you turn these days, someone is claiming that capitalism is facing an existential crisis.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old who will soon be a congresswoman from New York, declares that our “no-holds-barred Wild West hypercapitalism” is on the way out. French economist Thomas Piketty, by contrast, frets about a future where we are all governed by a ruling class drawn from billionaires, what he calls “patrimonial capitalism.” Meanwhile the archbishop of Canterbury hails the gig economy as “the reincarnation of an ancient evil.”

Let us stipulate it’s foolish to pretend the market is without its costs. A 57-year-old General Motors worker in Ohio who will be laid off as his company expands production in Mexico may understandably balk at the argument that, in the larger scheme of things, it’s all for the best.

Yet the recent protests across France ought to remind us that market decisions aren’t the only ones that can make life difficult for those trying to get by on their paychecks. For in these protests are we not seeing French citizens who have lost faith in the ability of their government to fulfill its most basic tasks, along with a growing resentment of the high price inflicted on ordinary French men and women by the good intentions of their elites?

The “Yellow Vest” protests across France were triggered by an increase in the gasoline tax. But even before this planned increase, the French were already the most taxed people in the European Union, one reason they pay more than double the American average at the pump. A gallon of gas in France costs drivers roughly $6, nearly two-thirds of which is tax.

Almost everywhere you turn these days, someone is claiming that capitalism is facing an existential crisis.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old who will soon be a congresswoman from New York, declares that our “no-holds-barred Wild West hypercapitalism” is on the way out. French economist Thomas Piketty, by contrast, frets about a future where we are all governed by a ruling class drawn from billionaires, what he calls “patrimonial capitalism.” Meanwhile the archbishop of Canterbury hails the gig economy as “the reincarnation of an ancient evil.”

Let us stipulate it’s foolish to pretend the market is without its costs. A 57-year-old General Motors worker in Ohio who will be laid off as his company expands production in Mexico may understandably balk at the argument that, in the larger scheme of things, it’s all for the best.

Yet the recent protests across France ought to remind us that market decisions aren’t the only ones that can make life difficult for those trying to get by on their paychecks. For in these protests are we not seeing French citizens who have lost faith in the ability of their government to fulfill its most basic tasks, along with a growing resentment of the high price inflicted on ordinary French men and women by the good intentions of their elites?

The “Yellow Vest” protests across France were triggered by an increase in the gasoline tax. But even before this planned increase, the French were already the most taxed people in the European Union, one reason they pay more than double the American average at the pump. A gallon of gas in France costs drivers roughly $6, nearly two-thirds of which is tax.

More From The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):