Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards. - George Orwell
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://theharshcouch.com/thc/2015-08-18/
The Harsh Couch - 2015.08.18 #OneTermWanker
wibbly
#1
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://theharshcouch.com/thc/2015-08-18/
Wibbly sent me this link. I was sending him a reply, but it turned into a bit of a rant, so I’ll put it here instead.
I liked the point about America’s (and generally most of the West’s) perspective that not only is the US to blame for something, but that it will take the US to make it better. There’s a certain sort of Western-centric perspective where white men are ultimately responsible for anything and everything, whether it’s good or bad.
On a not too dissimilar point, I’ve appreciated some noises from Dr Gob on the Couch in the last two weeks re: perhaps the government isn’t responsible for nor capable of solving all problems.
On the economic front - from a capitalist banker’s perspective, the government is often very low relevance when we analyse particular industries, economies and economic trends. Outside of the more authoritarian countries like China, government policy often has very little effect on macroeconomic factors (eg the unemployment rate) because there are much larger forces at play. Even in places like China, we’ve seen the government’s policies swept aside due to economic forces that are largely outside government control.
That makes Coalition/Lib/Republic/Democrat claims of responsibility for lower unemployment rates, economic growth etc as hollow as claims that the parties have large responsibility for negative macroeconomic trends happening on their watch.
I suspect the government’s role gets a lot of attention because it is one of the more transparent actors with some degree of responsibility to the public, together with talking heads who will blame it for problems. It’s also easier to blame a PM or party for a problem than a broad trend with millions of actors bearing a small slice of responsibility (particularly when the PM is a d*ckhead).
However, I suspect the story for many areas (eg social) are a lot like the economy. The government has a bit part, but more powerful democratic (in the empowerment of the demos sense) forces are at play and the government can often be acting like King Cnut telling the tide to turn back.
Often, the government we get can be the product of forces at play among the demos rather than the cause. And sometimes we can have feedback loops.