This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, August 23rd, 2019. I'm Caleb Brown.

One of the elements of the emerging national conservatism is industrial policy, the idea that government

should play a larger role in directing business activity.

The case for industrial policy put forth by Orrin Cassass leaves a lot to be desired.

So says Cato's Ryan Bourne.

We spoke last week.

Orrin Kass of the Manhattan Institute has made an argument sort of defending some kind of industrial policy and Ryan

you'll get to what that actually looks like but this is part of a broader movement within and among some conservatives to refocus the economic engine of the United States, among other things, to focus more on workers.

So what specifically has Orrin Kass proposed and why, I guess why is this something that would be expected or unexpected for

Conservatives to explicitly endorse?

Well, Lauren Cash made this speech at the National Conservatives and Conference last month and what he was

explicitly advocating was a manufacturing-focused industrial policy that the government would undertake.

And I think the reason why this is surprising from a conservative is that

at least for the past 30 years or so, conservatives have broadly agreed with

libertarians that free markets by and large tend to produce the most efficient

allocation of resources across sectors and in this speech K Cass was really repudiating that view. He was saying that market economies don't allocate resources well, that vital sectors suffer from under investment and in effect the market allocation of resources ignored

lots of social and economic benefits that come from having a large manufacturing sector.

So he explicitly outlined what he considers three big benefits from having a big manufacturing

sector. He said that first of all manufacturing provides well-paying stable employment for people with

less formal education. He said that manufacturing tends to

deliver faster productivity growth which raises living standards so you know it was preferable for us to have a larger share of

economic output in the manufacturing sector and he said that having a big manufacturing sector led to an economy more conducive to innovation.

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