Politics is the* reason industrial planning fails

Those who would plan the economy and our lives always do say that it’s far better that things are done democratically, by politics. Only the Rolls Royce minds of the civil service, so ably guided by the elect, can possibly guide the economy in the way that everyone would really want if only they were smart enough to know it.

Hmm.

Electric Vehicles: Tariffs will increase from 25% to 100% in 2024 (on top of a separate 2.5% tariff), the White House said, citing "extensive subsidies and non-market practices leading to substantial risks of overcapacity." The U.S. Trade Representative's Office said plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will be covered by the new tariffs but not hybrid vehicles.

So there are vast subsidies to electric vehicles, to make them cheap enough that people will buy them and so save the climate. But if anyone just actually makes cheap EVs and so saves the climate then they must be stopped from doing that by tariffs.

Biden’s national economic adviser, Lael Brainard, perhaps best summed up the purpose of the huge new tariffs when she said that they would ensure that government investments in jobs are not undercut by “underpriced exports from China.”

So, why’s that? Because this is an election year, it looks like it might be a tight race and the car making centre of the US is one of those tight, swing, states.

That is, the problem with politically determined economic plans is that the economic plans are determined by politics. Something for us all to remember the next time Professor Mazzucato barges through the door talking about industrial policy with strict conditionalities…..

*Possibly “a”