Saturday, June 12, 2010

Who understands Economics best

Which Political Party Understands Economics Best? - Veronique de Rugy - The Corner on National Review Online

The answer probably shouldn't surprise you. Libertarians understand the basics of Economics the best. Followed closely, I note, by conservatives.

This can be put into the context of Canada, where the biggest knock on Mr. Harper has been that he's a control freak and a cold calculating heartless person. He just doesn't care. These, unfortunately, stemmed from a person who understands Economics and understands that people can't always have everything that they want or necessarily everything that they need.

It should be noted that the further left on the political spectrum you go, the more "caring" for people there is, but only certain people. Those people deemed special and deserving of special care and attention. In general, however, that caring extends to the expansion of government to help all those poor little people who are being oppressed by whatever mean person is visible.

Now, I don't honestly believe that caring is a hallmark of the left of the political spectrum. I have always said that conservatives and libertarians care, just not necessarily in the way that most people expect. They care for people, they honestly want people to succeed, and be successful in everything that they do. The problem is that they don't believe that by giving a person something, by doing things for them, by enabling them in self-destructive behaviour that you are actually helping these people. This is the difference, and there also isn't much that can be done about it. It comes down to a different approach - self-reliance vs reliance on everyone else, and while neither approach is necessarily wholly the right solution, there is a proper mix between the two points which promotes self-reliance without taking away the basic social safety net.

I maintain that the basic question which must still be honestly answered by everyone on the full spectrum is "How much do you want done at the point of the gun?" I maintain that the more people that honestly think about and answer that question without blowing it off as hyperbole, the more people you will find gravitating towards the fiscal conservative side of the spectrum.

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