Quote:
Originally Posted by pshrynk
Economics is actually the best force for change that we have ever come up with. And that is coming from a yellow dog Democrat, dyed in the wool liberal. If you make it economically worthwhile to do something, people will do it. The only power that government has that works is to guide economics. They don't do it well, but they do that better than anything else they have tried.
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Yep.
I've never worried about Malthus's overpopulation doom scenario. Population growth drops dramatically in developed countries. Societies tend to have lots of kids when you have high infant mortality and you are largely based on agriculture and manual labor. You have lots of kids to insure that enough will survive to provide the needed hands to get the work done.
In modern industrialized nations, you don't have the high child mortality, or the need for many hands to do the work. And more important, even if you
want a lot of kids, chances are you can't afford them.
So it is with other things. Higher oil prices are spurring more interest in alternatives. I worked for an alternative energy project years ago, and the biggest barrier to adoption was economic. Alternative energy solutions don't become attractive till they are
cheaper than what they are intended to displace.
Yes, government can provide economic guidance. The problem has historically been that government is good at spending money, but not at making it. The usual role of government in the economy over here is seen as assuring an equitable redistribution of wealth. Splendid, but you must first
have wealth to redistribute, and government policies tend to inhibit the creation of wealth.
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Dennis