Why I don't respond to most political posts

[drscott]

The Wall Street Journal is running an excellent dialog on economic illiteracy here. When I first joined LJ, I would jump in and try to educate people when they posted angry comments that sprang from a misunderstanding of how the economy works. Over time I have realized that it is impossible to explain complex systems behavior -- the interaction of law, politics, and economics -- to people who don't know (or want to know) anything about economics. It is much easier to assume dark forces of The Rich or The Republicans or (less commonly, here) the Jews are manipulating and conspiring to squeeze the little guy.

It was that misunderstanding among the majority of the populations of developed countries in the 30s that led to years of depression as the international trading system shut down under an assault of beggar-thy-neighbor trade policies, then fascist or communist movements which further exploited the ignorance, then the millions of deaths and destruction of most of Europe and Japan in World War II. So it really does matter when you let yourself fulminate about supposed injustices (high gas prices? price control'em! ... high rents? slap on rent control! ... rich people? Tax'em until they bleed!). You end up not only impoverished but see your freedom, or even your life, vanish. This kind of thinking (the attractions of socialism) is always near the surface, barely restrained by the slim majority that has enough grounding in the real world, or education in history and economics, to realize it's a trap and a delusion to believe you can create wealth and equality through regulation and politics. East Europeans understand exactly why it doesn't work, having had recent experience, but some of the nicest people you would ever want to meet here still believe in fairies.

Comments

[tmaher.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm a social democrat. I'll happily accept that many blunt market controls and subsidies can screw more people over than they help (rent controlled rental properties drive up the market rate, US agricultural subsidies screw African farmers), but how do we deal with ensuring a simple minimum standard of living?

Is it really okay long-term to dismantle Social Security? Is the US still okay without a national health care system (Toyota seems to like Canada's)? Are my fears the product of a miseducation at the hands of a sensationalist media and my own intellectual laziness at not thoroughly learning how that whole economy thing works?

Also, I think you're mischaracterizing when you claim people believe are sure Evil Rich Republicans "are manipulating and conspiring to squeeze the little guy." I don't believe they're conspiring at all. Any market-driven little-guy squeezing is due to negligence, not malice.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

"We" don't exist. When "we" (on any level larger than a village) decide to "do something" to insure a minimum standard of living, it requires that we hire a large number of functionaries to determine who should receive the assistance to reach it. Those people owe their livelihoods to the problem they are addressing, the political forces who created them know they are more likely to be reliable voters for them, and the people so helped also have an incentive to keep the help system rolling. Motives are corrupted, the clients are turned into dependents, and the poverty is perpetuated.

At a village level, before the onset of competition from government social service agencies, people would help each other. Local organizations like town governments, churches, protective associations and the like took care of those in need. But along with aid came a dose of social education: the recipients knew they had to return the favor by themslves being civilized, by being part of the community, by avoiding actions which their community would see as contrary to the spirit of the community. That's how the moral hazard of a social safety net ("why work when you can loaf and someone will take care of you?") was not so much a problem -- people were grateful, did their best to get their independence back, and could count on advice and assistance from people who cared about them as people.

Social Security is a major problem. As you point out, it is built into everyone's expectations of the future even though it is not likely to have the money to pay its obligations past 2060 or so, and long before then the US government will be forced into a spiral of higher taxes and declining growth to try to cover the debt it owes the system (money which was spent happily as if it were current income.) "Dismantling" it is not on anyone's agenda, though it's a scare term used by some to frighten others into voting for them.

What you believe is considerably more informed and enlightened than average. You don't have to go far to find people saying it's been a Bush plan to raise oil prices to enrich his friends. You don't have to go far to find people who suggest that because a regimented, thoroughly repressive and anti-gay Cuban government is able to evacuate more effectively in case of hurricane, that the US should model itself along Cuban lines. No doubt Cuban trains also run on time....