Gov. Newsom’s Capitalist Manifesto

“Capitalism as we know it is not working,” Gov. Gavin Newsom recently proclaimed. “Something’s fundamentally broken here,” and so on. This marks something of a departure for the  governor as his final term winds down.

Gavin Newsom, who boasts ties to the Brown, Pelosi, and Getty families, has never claimed to be an economist. Newsom earned a degree in political science at Santa Clara University, graduating in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down. That signaled the failure of Eastern Bloc socialism, but it’s hard to find statements from Newsom explaining the poor performance of command economies versus the success of free economies.

By all indications, Newsom has never quoted Karl Marx, who also thought capitalism was broken. To be fair, Newsom has difficulty reading, but Marx’s works are available in audio form. So are those of F.A. Hayek (The Road to Serfdom), John Kenneth Galbraith (The Affluent Society), and Milton Friedman, author of Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose.

In eight years as Lt. Governor and eight years as governor, Gavin Newsom never issued any public statements on these economists. This is hardly the governor’s most significant omission.

A California resident since the 1970s, Thomas Sowell is the author of Basic Economics, Economics Facts and Fallacies, The Economics and Politics of Race, and many other books, available in audio format. In all his time in public life, Gavin Newsom has never issued a quote from Thomas Sowell that anybody can find. The governor has also come up short on descriptions of the kind of economic arrangements he would like to see, but he has left some clues.

In 2020, Gov. Newsom issued an executive order mandating that by 2035, all sales of new passenger cars and trucks must be electric. So Californians would get only the new cars the government wants them to have. That is not exactly the pattern in a free economy, in which the people are free to choose the products they believe best meet their needs.

On Newsom’s watch in 2022, California told EV drivers not to charge their cars during peak hours. California’s electrical grid is not up to the task, but the governor has no second thoughts about the 2035 EV mandate. On the other hand, Gov. Newsom recently aired regrets about his performance during COVID.

The beach closings were “insane,” the maskless French Laundry episode a “just boneheaded decision,” and as a result the governor says he “almost lost” the recall election in 2021. As it happens, Newsom prevailed by 61.9 percent, identical to his margin of victory for governor in 2018. So the governor who has never quoted Thomas Sowell also has trouble interpreting numbers.

In recent years, people and businesses have been leaving the Golden State in droves, but Newsom does not find evidence that his administration is somehow “not working,” in the style of his proclamation on capitalism. The next governor will doubtless have a chance to do better, but according to LA Mayor Karen Bass, that has already been decided.

“Our governor’s name is Xavier Becerra,” Bass recently proclaimed, “you don’t need an election on November 3.” That will come as news to California voters who elected governors Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown, Pete Wilson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and in 2003 successfully recalled Gov. Gray Davis.  On November 3, we’ll have to see what happens.