Does Kamala Harris Have Any Better Understanding of Reality Than Donald Trump?

There are opinions, and then there are empirical facts. Our opinions are formed by interpreting available empirical facts, but those opinions can easily deceive us if we are not careful. Not only must our opinions be consistent with a few observed empirical facts, but with all other empirical facts we know about. The presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have certainly shown us widely divergent opinions about social reality. Which one has a better understanding about that reality: Harris or Trump?

Kamala Harris’ View of Social Reality

Despite the fact that Kamala Harris is desperately trying to distance herself from Biden’s policies by repudiating many of her previous views, her repudiations lack credibility. It is highly unlikely she would completely change her picture of social reality. It is much easier to believe she is simply pandering to the voters to gain their votes.

What were her policy positions prior to her recent attempts at gaslighting? Like all progressive Democrats, Harris has much greater faith in the ability of government to solve problems than any Republican. She apparently does not believe in the classic law of supply and demand, as evidenced by her belief that inflation is caused by “price gouging” by private companies. Private companies have no incentive to price gouge since their profits are maximized at the equilibrium market prices determined by supply and demand. That is where the product of goods demanded times their price is maximized. That is also where the amount of goods produced is exactly the same as the amount sold. She also believes government is better able to allocate scarce capital through its spending programs than private companies. Yet, the chaotic nature of all society implies government has neither the competence nor the capability to direct the flow of capital investments.

As with almost all progressives, Harris has supported the elimination of fossil fuels. Proof of this can be found in her sponsorship as a senator of a Green New Deal bill. Now she is trying to avoid hot-button energy issues to avoid alienating voters.

In order to gain political support from hispanics, the Biden-Harris administration reversed all the programs Trump had put in place to stop illegal immigration. The resulting flood has become an undeniable threat to American society. Why would Democrats create such a threat?

Ever since John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira wrote their book The Emerging Democratic Majority in 2002, Democrats have been entranced with the idea a growing base of young and minority voters would give them perpetual control of American governments. The basic idea was the Democratic Party could meld a coalition between working class whites and minorities. It was thought the absorption of illegal aliens would increase the minorities voting for Democrats. Democrats would then obtain a majority of the electorate as their base. (It is interesting to note that Ruy Teixeira himself now believes that an open border is a bad mistake.)

As a part of her pandering to the American electorate, Harris is now insisting she will be “tough” on illegal immigration. Yet, given her past history, this is an assertion very hard to buy. During the Biden-Harris administration, over 8 million illegal immigrants have crossed our borders. The number that came across our border with Mexico was 6.7 million. During the fiscal years between 2021 and 2023, more then 250 migrants on the terrorist watch list entered the United States. At least 99 of them were later allowed to stay. Where was Harris when all this happened? She once opposed Trump’s border wall, which she called “un-American” and Trump’s “medieval vanity project.”

Clearly, Harris believes the federal government should control far more of American society; and she will say and do anything to get the power to accomplish that. That is her basic picture of social reality.

And What Does Trump Believe?

So how does Donald Trump differ? His world view has been shaped by his experience as a businessman. As a result, he has been very pragmatic, favoring policies that have demonstrably worked. And no economic model has been more successful internationally than free-market capitalism. Socialism, in either of its forms of fascism or communism, has failed in every country in which it has been tried. (Democratic socialism is a chimera, a contradiction in terms.) Therefore, it should be no surprise that Trump favors minimizing government’s control over the economy.  Some of his most important successes as President were executive orders to minimize the regulatory state. Among them was an order that before an executive department or agency could propose a new regulation, it had to eliminate two. In addition net changes to regulatory costs had to be negative or equal to zero, with any new regulatory costs offset by reductions from eliminated regulations. He can be expected to revive these policies if elected.

Also, Trump has been very clear he wants a significant shift from the Biden administration’s energy policies. He would end Biden’s delays in federal oil drilling permits and speed up approval of oil and gas pipelines. Instead of draining the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep oil prices down, as Biden did, he would refill it. Trump’s motto on energy is to “drill, baby, drill.” What Trump would do is get government out of the way of private companies to allow them to meet the nation’s energy needs. In fact, this seems to be Trump’s strategy to solve most economic problems.

Finally, Trump would return to his old policies that held down illegal immigration. These include continuing to build a southern border wall, and threatening the Mexican government with large tariffs on imported Mexican goods should it not do all it could to stop the flow of immigrants. Trump said tariffs would start at 5 percent, and increase by 5 percent every month to a permanent 25 percent. On top of that, Trump promises to deport illegal immigrants that the Biden Administration allowed into the country.

What Can the Nations of the World Tell Us?

The conflicts between Harris and Trump can be summarized by an assertion, the truth or falsity of which would determine what kinds of government policies we should support. Here is one way to phrase the assertion:

Governments lack both the competence and the capability to solve or ameliorate most of society’s problems.

That is the way that Trump would probably phrase it. Harris would assert the negative of this statement. This is a very broad claim. How should we go about determining whether it is true or not? I believe that it is not only true, but true for all nations. This means I must show that its truth is culturally independent. To do this, we need a number of different types of data. First, we need a number of figures of merit that show how well a government’s policies are benefiting its citizens. Choices of these figures of merit include per capita GDP, GDP growth rate, the Ginni index, and the United Nations’ Human Development Index.

Second, we need an index that shows how much a government controls society, most particularly its economy. Control of the economy implies control over the rest of society. I will use the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom (IEF). The IEF can vary from 0 to 100. Zero means complete government control of the economy  with absolutely no individual economic freedom. One-hundred denotes absolutely no government control over the economy.

Third, we need a source for data on all the figures of merit for as many countries as possible. For this purpose, I have mostly used the World Bank and the United Nations. In all of the charts I show below, I display scatter plots of the nations’ figures of merit versus their index of economic freedom. In any particular plot I will also graph the best fit of some function to the data.

First, let us look at the per capita GDP of all nations on Earth for which there is data. They are plotted below versus the countries’ IEF. The red dotted line is the best fit of a linear trend to the data.

Clearly, as a government’s economic control over its society decreases, the per capita GDP available to citizens increases.

Of course, it does not help a country if most of the GDP is in the hands of a very few rich people. We can measure how evenly the GDP is distributed among citizens by the country’s GINI index. An explanation for how it is calculated can be found here. (See also here.) It is usually scaled to vary from 0 to 100: 0 means absolutely no inequality, and a GINI of 100 means all the GDP is in the hands of one person (or entity) with no one else getting any of it. Below is a scatter plot of the countries’ GINI indices versus their IEF. Again the red dotted line is the best linear fit to the data.

There is a lot of scatter about the declining line fit to GINI index. This indicates income distribution depends more sensitively to some aspects of economic freedom than others. However, the trend line does have a negative slope, showing GDP distribution becomes more even as government economic control decreases. Also, the scatter about the trend line becomes progressively less as the IEF increases above 60.

Finally, let us take a look at the nations’ UN Human Development Index versus their IEF.  The UN HDI is a geometric average of three components: one depending on a person’s life expectancy, one depending on the country’s education level, and one that depends on income levels. Each of the sub-indices is forced to vary from 0 to 1.  The geometric mean of these sub-indices has the nice property that since all the sub-indices vary from zero to one, so will the HDI. In addition, if any of the sub-indices goes to zero, so will the HDI. The closer to one the HDI goes, the better off that country is. Below is a scatter plot of the nations’ HDI versus their IEF.

As with the GINI index, as countries’ IEF gets above 60, the scatter about the trend line becomes progressively and dramatically less. Clearly, the quality of people’s lives becomes much better as government controls less and less. 

So Which of the Two Understands Reality Better?

Every one of the national figures of merit studied above generally gets better as government economic control is lessened. Clearly, Trump understands this reality much better than Harris. Trump would reduce government regulation of the economy, while Harris would increase it.

As with all businessmen, Trump has an instinctive understanding of the law of supply and demand, if not an intellectual one. Harris, on the other hand, has shown her ignorance about supply and demand from her proposal for price controls and her proposals for tax increases on private companies.

And while Harris can be expected to push for the elimination of fossil fuels, Trump would let private companies provide fossil fuels as demanded by free markets. Donald Trump has been skeptical about anthropogenic global warming caused by human CO₂ emissions.There are very good scientific reasons for his skepticism. As far as global warming goes, Trump has the better understanding.

Finally, consider the issue of illegal immigration. During the Biden-Harris administration, Harris has done nothing to reduce the explosively growing flow of illegal immigrants. In addition, she has described Trump’s efforts to stop the flow during his administration as “un-American”. Some Democratically controlled cities have been so adversely impacted by illegal immigrants they have quietly started to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to remove the immigrants. That Trump would reinstitute his past policies to halt illegal border crossings shows he understands this problem far better than Harris.

Every major social and economic problem listed above shows that Donald Trump has a far more accurate understanding of social reality than Kamala Harris. Remember that when you go to the polls.

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