Thursday, August 26, 2010

Rules of the Road

[an imperfect analogy]
... So, today I'm driving down Lomas Avenue in Albuquerque, in traffic. What do I observe? Everyone is driving on the right side of the street. Folks are stopping at traffic lights and stop signs. Most everyone signals to indicate upcoming lane change. No one exceeds the posted speed limit.

What would this have looked like under GOP "free market" rules? Well - all of these governmental regulations wouldn't exist: you can drive anywhere you damn well please. Right side of the road? Only for pussies! Stop lights? Immoral restrictions on my personal freedom! Stop signs? Oh, please! Speed limits? You're impinging on my personal rights!

Within the well-established "rules of the road", most drivers manage just fine! The traffic ballet is really quite amazing to watch! - while observing the 'rules of the road', we manage to get to where we're going, fairly quickly, with few accidents, and fewer fatalities. Lane changes are executed with due respect for other drivers. Stop lights and stop signs are acknowledged... and lead to more-or-less continuous traffic flow.

What's more, these 'rules of the road' are enforced by the police!... no, not perfectly. Not everyone who runs a red light gets a ticket - but more than a few DO!
Speeding? If a cop's around, you'll get pulled over and ticketed. Most of us accept this. MOST of us are grateful when we see the cops pull over a transgressor.

The imperfect analogy? Why not establish 'rules of the road' for our financial institutions? The free-market ideologues - led by the late Milton Friedman - would have us believe that ANY restriction on the pure, unbridled free market would doom Capitalism! "No, no - ANY interference with pure, unbridled PREDATORY capitalism is bad!!!... We'll destroy our way of life!!!"

This was the philosophy embraced by the demi-god Alan Greenspan... till he saw the light:
“All of the sophisticated mathematics and computer wizardry essentially rested on one central premise: that enlightened self interest of owners and managers of financial institutions would lead them to maintain a sufficient buffer against insolvency by actively monitoring and managing their firms’ capital and risk positions,” the Fed chairman said. The premise failed in the summer of 2007, he said, leaving him “deeply dismayed.”
Ah! - the "enlightened self-interest of owners and managers" did NOT protect us from a 29-car pile-up on the freeway!!!
YES! - 'rules of the road' CAN lubricate traffic!!!

IF the rules apply to everyone, IF there IS enforcement - however sporadic - the rules protect us all from 29-car pile-ups!
Ah - but rules inhibit innovation!
... Well, no: in fact, I take a fair amount of pride in my ability to find ALTERNATE ROUTES when there's a traffic snarl ahead of me. This ability to use the 'rules of the road' to my advantage represents INNOVATION! - and I don't (or at least, haven't yet!) kill anyone in the process.

... and, oh yeah: this isn't just theoretical. The GOP's "no rules" regime has RECENTLY resulted in the The Great Recession - the current economic & financial mess in which we now live! "Rules of the Road" are GOOD!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the next time ANYONE cites the "miracle of the market" - LAUGH OUT LOUD!!!

5 comments:

  1. Excellent analogy. Let's stretch it further. I would venture to say that liberals are more likely to pay their taxes, in full, on time, than are libertarians and conservatives. There's got to be a study somewhere and I'll look it up in a minute. In my Blood-In-The-Water Red state, in my hard-over reactionary county, the movers and shakers don't pay their taxes as a matter of principle. It used to crack me up when their wives showed up in my office for support through a nasty divorce and I'd find that the taxes had to be paid before the court could divvy up the leftovers. Sometimes, after the lawyers, IRS and the spousal support were paid, there wasn't a whole lot left to move and shake with. Guys like those run this ville and they'll fight like pit bulls to keep it that way.

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  2. Nance: I can't tell you how delighted I was to discover that the comment was from you - not the Japanese guy posting child porn! (i do my best to delete his 'comments' as quickly as humanly possible!)

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  3. Milton Friedman's son makes a libertarian argument that stop signs are slavery. See, if the government can tell you to stop and do nothing for a moment then in principle the govermnent can tell you to do anything for any length of time. We are all slaves of the government. In principle.

    You may want to take a moment, roll your eyes, and exhale slowly before moving on.

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