“As the lock-downs come to an end,” writes economist Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan, “it will be expected by many — including many not on the political left — that the economy will pick-up at about where it was before the lock-downs.”
Mc Kiernan thinks a popular misconception will get in the way.
Those who see the economy as “a kernel of processes that take inputs and produce outputs based upon purely technologic considerations” will let this techocratic model cloud their thinking. Viewing this “kernel” as producing not only “everything necessary to maintain itself” but also, and more importantly, a surplus that they treat as a zero sum affair — requiring the State to redistribute — they will regard the re-start as if a mere flipping on of a switch.
But the economy is not something to be un-plugged and plugged back in, and the lock-down super-quarantine was not a mere interruption of service. It was a huge blow that will demand uncountable adjustments. Those quite necessary adjustments may seem random, even wild, and because of this those on the “political left” will, Mc Kiernan predicts, do what they always do: “diagnose the failure to restore the economy quickly as ‘a failure of capitalism.’”
In other words, the bully knocks the victim down, stomps on him, and then taunts him for not getting up right away.
Still worse: those taunts will become excuses for more kicking and stomping. And the flailing economy will be seen as all the more justification for more of the bully-boy Big Government policies that caused the “failure.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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3 replies on “The “Failure” of Capitalism?”
Amen
While some on the left are at least close to recognizing themselves as bullies or as would-be bullies, a very great many don’t see themselves this way at all.
In their minds, something called “we” has created the kernel of the economy, but the management of the economy has been entrusted to the capitalists or stolen by the capitalists. In the case in which it is believed to be entrusted to the capitalists it is held that, if the capitalists fail in the management of the economy (which management is believed to be essentially a technical problem), then the thing called “we” may take it from them. In the case in which it is believe to have been stolen by the capitalists, then “we” may take it whether the capitalists do a good job or bad.
The thing called “we” is rather odd, because the people who use this term are seldom so bold as to claim individually to have made much of a difference in the construction of the economy. (Indeed, many of them are young people who have never had a job; their own involvement has been confined to spending money given to them by family members.) Their “we” is somewhat akin to that of racists, who want to claim social standing and perhaps resources based upon claims as to what their “we” is believed to have done.
The people, who do this are enemies of this nation and should be treated as such.