A Political Thought or Two

It's probably pointless to post this here, since most (if not all) the people who read this blog usually vote Republican. But in any case.

Here's a recurring theme in present day politics. The President (a liberal Democrat) or the Congress (majority Democrat, with liberal Democrats in the highest leadership positions) proposes a governmental solution to some problem--be it the economic/financial crisis, health care, whatever. Republicans, and especially conservatives, decry the solution as one that a) likely won't work, and b) involves too great an expansion of government power. The Democrats' rejoinder, at least in large part, is often "all you're doing is criticizing. You haven't offered another solution."

While that may be true (the Republicans/conservatives who offer the criticism may not have been thinking of a solution), there seems to be an obvious counterpoint that at least the Democrats are missing. That is, that the alternative "solution" may not be that the government do something else. It may be that the government do less, if not nothing. To assume that this is the equivalent of "do nothing" is to assume that the government is the only possible actor in the situation.

Republicans'/conservatives' preference--and perhaps mine, though I just don't think I know enough to make strong claims about what will and won't work--might be that private individuals, private groups of individuals, and private business entities work for themselves, stimulating the economy through their own economic activity. The idea is that you work for yourself; don't ask government to work for you. It won't do a good job.

This leads to other questions, such as whether the distribution of wealth and power in the market has become such that a small number of powerful actors working in their own self-interest make it impossible to achieve everyone's self interest (I feel like game theory should come into this, somehow, but I don't know enough about game theory). If that is the case, maybe the government does need to level the playing field somehow? But I don't know that I'm quite ready to believe that.

On a related note, I tire of the argument that Republicans' failed policies got us into this mess, so their proposed solutions have no merit. The ability to see mistakes in hindsight says nothing about the merits of proposed solutions to current problems. It means neither a) that Republicans proposals won't work for current problems, nor b) that Democrats' proposed solutions will. Yes, the Democrats have an electoral mandate to try their solutions, but that doesn't mean they can assume the Republicans' solutions to current problems are wrong just because some Republican policies arguably led to undesirable consequences.

In the end, I don't know the future any more than the people that are making these arguments. And really, I hope their solutions work, because they're the only solutions we're likely to get for a long time, given who's in power right now. But I hate bad argumentation.