If Your Argument Is Based on Economics, You’ve Already Lost
hbr.org
hbr.org
I think the leftists for the past 60 years have acted with good intentions; they think that they have been doing the right thing(s). However, they seem to do the same thing time and time again. Namely that they pretend to know all the variables regardless of context and argue that they are able to account for all variance via central planning. That is what Hayek called "pretense of knowledge". Nassim Taleb's Black Swan talks about that in depth. The failure to account for the "emotional" variable is what this article is about!
In fact, that is the reason Econ is not a science. It is basically impossible to create rigid future-predicting economic models. Physics can do that because you can isolate and probe, while econ is far more complex of a structure where isolation of a variable is basically impossible. Even if you managed to do that it wouldn't matter because variables in aggregate tend to give rise to emergent properties.
I think of economics as an NP-complete problem (perhaps even EXP). It might be possible to create statistical models that are "good enough" in most cases. But they are not deterministic or efficient. Therefor, I don't believe that centralized planning will ever work on these large scales.
If you look back a few more centuries, and check out what the brothers Gracchi, Gaius Marius and Julius Caesar were up to, you'll start to notice that money-less aristocrats have a knack of rallying the poor to their banner, so they can take the state from the moneyed aristocrats.
That has happened a few more times, and rarely the poor have really profited from it. It's a tough game.
It's two things in one package: 1. Admitting that your opponent is better at rhetoric. 2. Accusing his voters for stupidity.
Neither of these is helping you to win those voters back. It's in-group feel-good bullshit. As if you didn't want to get elected in the first place. Now shut up and learn from your enemy. Or alternatively call out their lies if they really lied.
Give us the EU we want: free trade, safety and easier migration. Don't become anything else.
Now the leftist in EU want to use tax dollars to make commercials about the benefits instead: indoctrination in it's finest.
Time for self reflection EU.
That's because you're not fully using your brain, as they used to say in those "pop science" pieces.
Your politicians voted that money in exchange for a few things, such as acquiescence to some political scheme or another, retirement of a fishing fleet or two, 'normalization' of the size of marketeable pears and melons, an easy market for cars, wind turbines and submarines, etc, etc. Let's not even mention the really profitable stuff, such as bank loans and Mickey Mouse rights.
Plus, entirely for free, you get an outraged sense of moral superiority over those worthless moochers, which you get to call PIGS in print with no consequences whatsoever, as strange as that may sound.
It's a good deal, as the USA have found out in their version of it.
Maybe I'm just angry that my small country has weak politicians.