Maine and New Hampshire diverge
Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man—a book about the Great Depression—applies herself to the economic differences between Maine and New Hampshire today.
As a New Englander, I know these two states (and Vermont and Massachusetts and Connecticut and Rhode Island) fairly well. Outsiders may consider all these states somewhat similar (they’ve got lakes! they’ve got pretty autumn leaves! they’ve got village greens!), but they are not. New Hampshire has the distinction of being less liberal than the others; it’s more or less purple right now, with the others being blue (or perhaps even indigo).
But right after WWII, Maine and New Hampshire were very similar to each other in demographics and fiscal policies, with Maine slightly ahead in some respects. Then they diverged, as Shlaes points out (based on a study by J. Scott Moody of Public Choice Analytics):
At the end of World War II, Maine boasted a bigger economy and a bigger population than New Hampshire. In some other respects the two states were similar. They were both in New England, and both were struggling with the death of old industries such as textiles. In 1946, per capita income was $9,610 and $9,768 for Maine and New Hampshire, respectively…
Back in 1946, only 16.6 percent of what Maine residents earned or collected came from a government, federal, state or local. For New Hampshire, that rate was 18.4 percent. Neither state had an income tax or a sales tax. Then the divergence started.
Then Maine began to tax its citizens much more heavily than New Hampshire did, so much so that now Maine residents’ tax burden ranks 6th nationally to New Hampshire’s 49th, and more residents rely on public sector income. It shows in the results: New Hampshire is doing significantly better than Maine economically, as just about every sentient being in New England is aware.
[NOTE: No doubt someone, somewhere, will try to say these differences are due to factors other than economic policies such as taxation. And it may even be true for all I know; life does not lend itself to absolute certainty in such matters, because the variables are numerous and cannot be controlled. But the argument that Moody and Shlaes advance that fiscal policies made a big difference seems fairly compelling to me.]
Ms. Shlaes recently appeared on the Glenn Beck show to talk about Calvin Coolidge and her work on the Depression. She is a first rate intellectual in the best sense of the term.
I suspect that lefty academics would be above such things.
due to factors other than economic policies such as taxation
If taxation isn’t an economic policy, then what is it?
The issue here is progressive taxes, not taxes in the original American sense.
progressive taxes are used as a whip and carrot to effect social changes and demographic changes over periods of time as such pressures are pushed and removed by progressive design to facilitate and allow demographics to make the changes permanent. [unless you have a way to resurrect extinct lines]
As they tell it, the victim slave class will eventually do the work. Women traded places and booted out their mates (who would be on their side), just in time to be that permanent slave/victim class (for all the reasons farmers choose to maximize one sex over another (it is a philosophical movement from the early 1800s, so how else would they think?))…
heck if you list out the goals and then paint the picture from the parts, boy are the ‘ladies’ going to be surprised as to what they made following the progressives using them as a ladder to power over them (and their children).
[deleted the belabored point as to the bigger picture with all the parts, over the collection of disjointed and seeming social goodness held apart when examined]
Just note a war will facilitate a change to a population with a lot less males and women having to take up all the jobs. it will fix the finances, remove the welfare lumpen, remove men, facilitate permanent change, and all the fun stuff that people who DO think about mass control find appealing…
Well my first post got eaten but what I was going to say was that the article sounds right to me.
It is also worth noting that a lot of the net migration out of Maine and net migration into NH are the same people. If they ever want to move back to Maine, they are looking at a 30-50% pay cut.
This year we have a very conservative Repub. candidate for governor (no Snowe Collins clone) and he won the primary by a lot. Of course I am going to vote for him, but a part of me almost does not want to because I know that he is going to be demonized as bad as Bush and more and I would hate to see that happen.
Artfldgr: I think you misunderstood my point. By “due to factors other than economic policies such as taxation,” I meant “other than economic policies in general, of which taxation is a specific example.” Taxation is an economic policy, naturally.
In other words, they might say the differences are due to something other than economic policies at all—perhaps due to geography, for example, or something like that.
life does not lend itself to absolute certainty in such matters
actually it does… but if you dont know the history, then life seems uncertain. if you know the history and in detail, life is just like movies when you get older. you see the same predictable plots and ends over and over. hence the saying… those who fail to learn…
but that saying, like what is the sound of one hand clapping, means different things if one focuses and goes deeper than kitsch.
i will guess that you have yet to read “the road to serfdom” and misis economics works…
growing up kenesian, and not knowing the alternative, one i guess would think no one knows.
but if you knew the better economics… not the economics selected by elites to promote, and by doing, cause huge harm… you know, like loading bad programs into a manufacturing system that works really good.
Its why we follow destructive economics.
having no idea of the process, you cant imagine how its done, and how it never points anywhere. even when they are caught, you don’t get it. payola… what is payola? using money to change the outcome of a natural situation… and by doing, change the natural outcome to the one you want. no? payola is an amateur form in which the entities can be caught.
but, at a higher level, when there are much more resources involved, that game changes. They dont make us do anything directly. They just look over the landscape of ideas and select and then promote those with bad ones. so they dont create black race groups, they just protect them, favor them, play dissimulation games… they don’t create a new religion, they select one that is dysfunctional, mix in Hegel, do a push pop on it, and use the weaker one temporarily made strong by state power to remove the stronger one, made weaker by state… then whats left is easier to deal with than what you had. no?
The best part? all the bit player useful idiots think that they are on top of the world because they are great. it feeds on itself and self festers.
so you select a young person who is disgruntled as the rest of the world doesn’t agree with their work (for good reason that youth wont see). you give him a job, let him write, let your people do the work to make him. anyone ever see Jerry lewis “the patsy”?
MANY were selected this way… and many of them wrote late in life as to their mistake. but its their young selves that are celebrated with the old selves erased. Langston Hughes, Naomi Goldstein (Betty Friedan), Bella Dodd, Maynard Keynes, Kinsey, Meade.
they are so normalized its hard to see… but the same thing was done in the arts, and there its easier to see how someone like Mapplethorpe would never become mainstream without some form of promotion.
on the FLIP side… those that had good ideas, who could help, or provide information. they were disfavored.
ultimately this is the difference between a well funded and organized “professional left” and the rest of us. they “make history” we “react to history”.
so there is knowing to your economic question, but is it easier to feign no one knows, and we are all equal in ignorance… or to go out and learn the different key papers and tracts that caused such rocking failure of the progressives?
sadly we are not like our grandparents and the latter is too hard.. in fact its so hard that our grandparents paid to read those books and paid handsome sums given their salaries, and we can get them kind of free off the net and dont care to.
your missing some incredible writers… clear, easy to understand, and quite enjoyable compared to Keynes, and other false giant post turtles placed on obelisks
would you believe that the road to serfdom was so popular and changed things so much that there is cartoon illustrated versions?
oh… the funny part? this cartoon version was made by GENERAL MOTORS… 🙂 it was part of their “thought starter series”, of which this was 118
(what were the other 117 about?)
The Road To Serfdom in cartoons…
http://mises.org/books/TRTS/
Just to let you know, we are on page 9 of the cartoon version… and note that its a variation plot, not a copy, its never a exact copy… but whats impossible to compare at the too many details level is the same at a higher level and where the details end up adding up.
Wow Artfl, thanks for that link. Here is 1984 online:
http://wikilivres.info/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
Maine has embraced, through a series of liberal governors and absolute control of the state legislature by Democrats for more than a generation, a profoundly leftist path. She has become self-destructively anti-business, and environmentally hypersensitive. Her people are increasingly ex-patriated liberals from away who came to know Maine first as a tourist mecca – and who vote to keep that way. As a result, common sense Mainers have found they have less voice in government and fewer career opportunities. They are forced to go elsewhere for good jobs and more economic freedom.
The majority of those remaining just don’t seem to get the connection between public projects and higher taxes. Year after year I’ve watched my fellow Mainers bitch and moan about taxes all year long – and then, when election time comes around, there isn’t a bond issue they don’t vote through or a tax and spend liberal politician they don’t elect.
Now, we have the best opportunity in a long time to elect a governor in LePage, who actually knows how to balance a budget. He’s leading in the polls right now, but even if he wins, he is likely to still face a Democrat majority in the state legislature. I don’t hold out much hope for change any time soon. It may already be too late. In another 20 years Maine will have completed its transformation to one giant theme park for the wealthy and well-connected. No one else will be able to afford living here.
In NH they have an institution called The Pledge: a candidate for governor who does not promise to veto an income tax has, historically, no chance of winning.
I’d like to see every single candidate for Congress confronted with a VAT Pledge.
Especially the Republicans. Especially the mavericks who reach across the aisle, if you get my drift.
IMHO the issue has such a favorable upside/downside for the GOP that their failure to bring it up speaks volumes.
cultural differences do exist, no?
all my French-Canadian relations now live in Maine; it seems like a lot of “acadians” live there, moreso than NH?
Being heavily Roman Catholic, they will be culturally more inclined to socialistic tendencies (we are literally taught this in school) than a more Protestant-derived WASP populace . . .
that might have been the start of it, anyway.
Interesting. I lived on the East coast (VA) for 24 years and never knew the differences between the states.
I lumped them together.
BlackOrchid:
You are probably correct that Maine has more French-Canadian influence than NH, if only by proximity. But a lot of French-Canadians went to work in the mills of Manchester NH, which at the time was a humongous MILL TOWN. [The only son of Manchester I have known is French-Canadian in background.]
Baklava:
Which reminds me of the lumping together of “Anglos,” which many Hispanics do in the Southwest.
My small home town in NE had differentiation into old Yankees, Central and Eastern European ethnics [a classmate of mine didn’t learn English until he was 4 years old.] and recent migrants[commuters]. Not to mention Italians, Irish, et al. “Anglos” covered a wide ground.
As Maine goes, so goes the Nation.***Giant Flushing Sound***
Funny justaposition with the piece on Michigan a few days ago: Maine was the Detroit of square masted ships; or, if you prefer, Detroit is the Maine of automobiles.
Bad me:
juxtaposition not justaposition
A little tangential, but sort of along the “all-East-Coasters-are-the-same” line . . .
I am an Italian/Irish Roman Catholic (2nd/3rd generations) and am aware of HUGE cultural differences between:
– Irish-American RCs (very devout, trust and become part of hierarchies, no problem with authority and like to be in power, like to drink)
– Italian-American RCs (really don’t give a crap that much, live and let live, ignore any and all authority including and most of all the Church, pretty much suck at drinking)
– French-Canadian RCs (very devout, fatalistic, but also have the Italian-American anti-authoritarianism, drink often but not well)
– Ukrainian/Polish RCs (not very devout, easy-going, ok with authority, really excellent at drinking)
And I’m sure Mexican, Central and South American RCs are also completely different animals . . .
Of course these are huge generalizations! lol
but you know the toughest nuns and priests were always Irish and the “easy” priests were Italian!
Baklava: Maine and NH are different in other ways, too—most especially geography, because Maine is quite big and NH quite small. It’s NH and Vermont that most people think are even more similar, because they are similar in size and even somewhat similar in shape.
But they are even more different, in fact, than NH and Maine. NH and Maine used to have more of an industrial base (mills, and then shoes) whereas Vermont was always more rural and agricultural. Now, although all three states rely heavily on tourism and refugees from cities like Boston and NY, Vermont is even more heavily reliant on those things than the other two states. And although Vermont used to be Republican or independent, since this influx that started mainly in the 1969s, it is now far more liberal; perhaps the most liberal state in the US.
NH, on the other hand, still retains its libertarian motto “Live Free or Die.” And its emergence as a Democrat state was relatively recent, during the Clinton years, and the margin of Democrat victory has always been smaller. Perhaps that’s because more of its immigrants from NY and Massachusetts came there to flee taxes, and don’t want to make NH into the places they left.
Tom: LOL we think that too. I’m surprised someone knew about that old saying.
Gringo: Mill towns are the worst hell on earth places to live. I totally grew up in one. I have needed so much therapy because of it.
They have an odd pecking order – your social status in town is determined by how high up you are in the mill (or how high up your dad is if you are a schoolkid). And if you do not work at the mill, you might as well go jump off a bridge because you are worse than trash.
Very poisonous atmosphere in both the literal and figurative senses. I can imagine Detroit etc. being very similar.
Right in my wheelhouse, folks. I’ve posted on this over the years. I grew up in Manchester, NH, and now live in the next town over. We go back aways here, though my family also has Nova Scotia and rural MA, along with some Swedes. So you do know a son of Manchester who isn’t French-Canadian, gringo.
If this goes too long I’ll break it into separate comments.
First. Yes to Shlaes basic point. The reasons why the three originally similar states diverged are interesting.
Two. Types of economy. VT and Maine, before tourism, were largely agricultural, especially if one includes fishing and timber/pulp as agriculture. Maine had some mills, but NH went in for that far more. Beginning around the 1840’s, and accelerating after the Civil War, those states emptied, as farmers discovered that in Western NY, Ohio, and Indiana there weren’t so many goldurned rocks to contend with. Only western NH suffered the same changes. There are towns in those areas that are still smaller than they were in 1840. Our population was more stable, and the mills had much to do with that.
Even the tourist economies were different. VT had the ubiquitous country inns. Maine had two types: remote hunting by wealthy businessmen from Boston and Philadelphia, and ocean cottages, built by similar summer visitors from away. The name LL Bean may come to mind, especially if you knew it a generation ago, with its curious mix of serious outdoorsman and colorful Bar Harbor prep chic. But NH had the grand hotels (no coastline, remember), where the wealthy would send the whole family for the summer on trains, with the husbands riding up on weekends. The tourist economies are somewhat more similar now. Skiing, lakes, hiking are similar across the three.
Three. The mills were the dominant industry in Manchester (somewhat less so in Nashua, Concord, Tri-Cities), but not the only one. The city also made itself a local focus for shopping, amusements, financial services. While French Canadians were the last and largest group to arrive for the mills – the West Side of Manchester is still largely Quebec-descended – they were not the only group. Poles, Swedes, Scots, Greeks, Ukrainians, and Irish also came in their time. Plus, Puritans and Scots-Irish from earlier migrations moved into the city as well. Some of these groups were strongly Democratic – NH was not entirely Republican. But the French-Canadians in particular moved back and forth, many not becoming citizens until two full generations in. Plus, we have always had that old New England streak of do-gooders, dreamers, and poets. Lots of that in Concord.
Four. The in-migration of the three states has been quite different. NH has gone from solid red to purple largely because the SE part of the state has become a suburb of Boston metro. VT’s immigrants came up starting in the 60’s from New York to get away from the rat race, start communes, or overdose on pastoral charm. They still vote like New Yorkers. Maine’s immigrants are largely along the coast, strongly connected to that wealthy northeast city contingent. Roosevelts, Tafts, Rockefellers, Morgans, Bushes, Vanderbilts – we didn’t have that so much in NH and VT.
Neo wrote, “But they are even more different, in fact, than NH and Maine.”
News to me !!
I had them lumped together even worse!
But I see what you are saying with the wikipedia article. Wow.
I’m often interested in the state comparisons done by various groups. The low tax states vs. the high tax states (of which CA is one with 12.5% unemployment).
I believe the legacy media would be doing a better job if they reported these things…
artfldgr……write a book. I’m serious.