> When I started out, I believed that government regulation could solve every problem with relatively simple intervention.
You don't have to be a tea-partying libertarian to see that such an idea is shockingly naive.
You don't have to be a tea-partying libertarian to see that such an idea is shockingly naive.
But, it is a viewpoint deeply held. I've spoken with people over 30 and even over 50 years old that still bought into the idea that government is the solution to all problems.
On the other hand, the view that capitalism and privatization fixes all problems is just as flawed.
There is no one-system-fits-all and it can't even be said that one system is necessarily a better choice in any given situation. Status-quo is usually a good choice though, if it is working.
I mostly agree with this except currently the Status-qou isn't working for most people and the environment. The pendulum swung too far towards the "government bad, markets good" end of the spectrum. To tackle the big problems of the day (Climate change, income inequality, chronic unemployment/underemployment due to technology changes and automation, etc) we will need much more government regulation. That includes local and national regulation with unprecedented global cooperation. The free market on its own has proven itself incapable of solving the problems society faces and in fact is causing some of the above problems.
Engineering has a thing called 'control volumes', where you draw circles (volumes actually) around a system, and measure inputs and outputs. They must balance for a steady state to be achieved. Maybe by measuring things that actually matter (instead of for instance completely imaginary point systems like money or votes) we could constrain society to at least be stable.
The Tea Party is really just farther-right conservative.
Republicans with funny hats :)
I will stand corrected if you can point me to something that is an official "platform" of the Tea Party, but to my knowledge, no such thing exists...
Find me a tea partier who is willing to cut pork going to their own district? They don't exist. All their bloviating about being more conservative than the other guy is dog whistles to get themselves elected.
Both of these positions are things which might naturally occur to someone with relatively little experience watching the impact of regulation or the evolution of unconstrained free markets. Is it "shocking" that someone who hasn't had an opportunity to observe a system in action (which is pretty much what the entire piece is about) comes to a naive conclusion?
No. I'd say that's a perfectly reasonably naive position.
(Not quite as naive as
(thinking that
(is anything more than
(the belief that
(every problem works itself out as long as the government goes away))
(a strawman for the libertarian position))))Not every problem is caused by the government, but that doesn't mean they can be solved by government, nor does it mean that they warrant having a government in the first place.
Take my username- Fdanconia pays homage to Francisco d'ansonia, one of the protagonists from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. It reminds me that I used to think "pure capitalism and no government" was an answer. Now, I believe that a healthy mix of both regulation and competition is essential to our society.