I’m sure, if I keep trying, I can understand. Mother always told me so. I do try, but something just doesn’t seem to make sense. I’m talking about the radical right-wing conservatives’ eagerness to dismantle government.
Right-wingers constantly complain about how much money government is costing each taxpayer. They want some kind of spending cap instituted to keep the government from spending too much. And they cry foul every time the Legislature passes any kind of regulation controlling business and our economy, claiming that we’re creating a poor business climate and we ought to just let the market decide.
Consternated, that’s what I am! Webster’s Unabridged tells me that means “paralyzed with amazement, horror or fear.” How right it is! (Pun intended.) What gets me confused and consternated is all the contradictions that right-wingers heap into their pronouncements. Just like this. They say, “Put on spending caps but we’ll have no more regulations!”
Let me give you another example. My dear brother just explained to me in great detail that there is no shortage of oil, that there will be plenty of oil for hundreds of years to come. OK, so he’s talking about shale oil and other kinds of fossil fuels that are harder to retrieve and refine. But in the next breath, he says we should avoid instituting price caps and let the market control the situation naturally. That’s good old Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” Do you remember your Economics 101?
You see, they say we can just rely on the prices going up when supplies are limited, which will cause our usage to go down. We’ll start using buses (but right-wingers oppose public transportation!) to take us to our jobs (but it’s hard to find a job when George W. Bush has amassed the worst job creation record since the Great Depression!). Oops, sorry, I mean, we’ll drive less to save money. But wait! Why will there be a shortage and why will the prices go up if there’s an endless supply of oil? This ability to simultaneously believe two contradictory things was aptly called “Doublethink” in Orwell’s 1984.
Just because the market will respond with higher prices when the supply is short doesn’t mean that’s fair or right or just. I believe economic policy should be measured by standards of fairness and justice. Sure, the prices will go up, and that will reduce the use of a limited resource, but who gets to do the using when it costs so much more? You guessed it, the elite: those folks who have more than the rest of us, and can afford higher and higher prices because their personal supply of wealth keeps going up faster than the prices do.
I don’t like price controls either, but I do keep looking for techniques to make things work out more fairly. I look for leaders who have that core value, too. I form coalitions with people who are willing to act decisively to assure our human future on earth, even if it might turn out we were wrong. I’ll be so happy to be wrong!
Now, here’s another popular contradiction. In one breath, right-wingers will call for limiting the government, or even dismantling it. And in the next, they will want government to enact more laws to punish somebody who’s doing something they don’t like, like opening a quarry in their neighborhood. Now, I’m with them on the quarry thing, but how can they live with the contradictions?
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