Posted by
Rilaly on Sunday, June 21, 2009 2:10:31 AM
George Will: “Dr. Von Hayek, why is it that so many intellectuals and particularly economists look at capitalism, they won't see the overwhelming prosperity and success that it has generated."
Dr. Von Hayek said he troubled over this for a long time trying to understand it, and the best that he could come up with was that, to intellectuals, it's all about control.
One of the problems of today’s politician is that they do not engage in the pursuit of simple truths. Today’s politician is, more often than not, a theoretical emotionalist. A theoretical emotionalist finds it hard to believe that the proverbial Joads that run the local bakery are happy. “How can they be happy?” asks the politician, “when they’re barely making it?” To solve what the politician believes is a crisis he will put in theoretical railroad switches to assist the Joads in living a better lifestyle. The politician cannot help himself. He has been well schooled in the theoretical, and he has spent countless hours reading other theoretical ideas on the subject, and he decides that the simple truth can exist no longer. The world has become complicated, he says, and the simple solutions of the past no longer apply. As with most issues of an economic nature, the invisible hands that put the switches into place usually do more harm than good. Most politicians mean well, but they never appropriately gauge the unintended consequences of their intervention. They don’t realize what a vital role the Joads play in the economy--even from their seemingly unsubstantial branch. So, they help them. They place these theoretical railroad switches in place to help the little guy. In doing so, of course, the politician is hurting the big guy. In some ways, this is the goal. If held to point, the politician will inform the public that the big guy can afford to withstand a little pain. The big guy has big pockets, he informs us, and he hopes that we will hold our fist high in our battle against the big guy.
In this scenario, let’s say the big guy is the supplier who the politician believes is taking unfair profit in the cycle of the business venture with the Joads. Of course, the big guy will pass the pain onto the Joads who in turn pass that pain onto their customer base, and in the end the business of the Joads is hurt worse than anyone else in the cycle, because they were just barely making it when the politician decided to put in the switches. In the end, the politician meant well, so the final result is rarely called into question. The politician may even try to put in another switch to rectify the damage done in the previous attempt. The thing of it is, most politicians are lawyers, and they don’t understand the inner workings of the business cycle. All they know is that their good intentions make for an excellent advertisement, a point in a debate, or a platform position. In general, politicians are the best and the brightest in our community, but some of the times they over complicate issues when the simple truth is staring them in the face.