Invisible hand during the holidays

Adam Smith's “The Wealth of Nations” is a book seldom read in its entirety. Libertarians underwent multiple iterations of winnowing the more than five hundred fifty pages into something more closely matching their ideological viewpoint. Once, they serialized a conservative version in Reader's Digest. I don't know anyone who has read it, certainly not Iowa's current crop of conservative politicians. We came to know the phrase "invisible hand" of the market through Smith.

The invisible hand is a metaphor for the unseen forces that move the free market economy. Ronald Reagan referred to it as the "magic of the marketplace." With economic freedom comes prosperity they say. Only it doesn't. This is truly magical thinking.

Last week it was announced Koch Industries is buying the Iowa Fertilizer Company in Wever. This facility has been a story of money changing hands among large, wealthy entities from the beginning. The $110 million in financial incentives from the state will finally come home to roost with a company that is so deeply embedded in Iowa Republican politics we forget to notice their presence. Is this Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market, or just the greedy hands of industrial capitalists?

Right-wingers believe in the efficacy of the people as individuals with each making their own decisions in a free-market economy. This holiday season they emphasized their belief that people, as a group or social class, don't mean much of anything to them as they work to please corporate sponsors.

Before Christmas, Gov. Kim Reynolds released her Christmas message to Iowans, including this paragraph:

“As we gather to celebrate this joyous holiday with family and friends, let us be reminded of the many blessings that we enjoy as a free people and the responsibility we have to each other as children of God.”

Let this sink in: "Let us be reminded of … the responsibility we have to each other as children of God."

That is, unless one is poor and can't afford health insurance. By privatizing Medicaid, the state created an expensive, inefficient process that denies care to some who need it. In that case forget about our shared responsibility to each other as God’s children.

That is, unless one is a child who qualifies for the free lunch program where on Dec. 22, Reynolds rejected available federal funds to pay for a summertime EBT card for hungry children. In that case, you can go hungry.

That is, unless one lives in our substandard nursing homes where the state is as much as 41 months behind in conducting annual inspections, perhaps in violation of federal regulations. In that case you can just drop dead.

Where is the idea of Christian charity to bind us together in meeting common needs? Where is the invisible hand to lift the poor and provide adequate opportunity to achieve minimum financial needs? I submit it is busy in the pockets of the wealthy, delivering government benefits that frame their success, of a kind the poor will never see, of a kind the fertilizer company received in spades.

This holiday season we must vow to change how we treat the poor with our votes … in 2024 and beyond. Republican politicians are not listening. Voting them out of office is the only thing they might understand.

Paul Deaton lives in rural Solon.