What most governments do, of course, is play with the value of money in all sorts of ways. I have been arguing for a while now that I think there is a good chance that the profession of Economics would be unnecessary if there were no such thing as “monetary policy”.
Sound currency, free markets, enforceable contract law, private property rights, and a politically liberal government: these are all you need for sustained long term development. No advice or experts are needed.
When you start “fixing” things with the government, as we are getting ready to do with the “stimulus”–which I haven’t studied in detail because I know some parts will make me mad–you wind up swinging too far one way, then the other. You wind up with multiple pendulums which nobody can quite synchronize or make stop. No amount of expertise or even artificial intelligence can ever equal the intelligence of the market as a whole, as comprised of the individual viewpoints of the countless involved and affected individuals. The Extended Order, as Hayek put it, or the Invisible Hand, as Adam Smith put it.
I was doing my Kum Nye practice this morning, thinking about something I heard on an Audible book I listened to (Not for Happiness). He said “Samsara cannot be fixed”. And he’s right. Problems, and finite limits, and the possibility but not continual presence of pain are what make this reality special. Without problems, it cannot serve its purpose. If one were to “fix” it, one would be destroying something truly useful.
Now, I think all of us, those of us who feel there is something useful and beautiful in the ideal of compassion, could and should try to make this world better, in our small corners, in the places we inhabit, among the people that we meet.
But some part of us needs to recognize that final failure is inevitable, and that the cure is personal growth and empowerment, in the direction of higher spirituality. The book argued that the solitary mystic was doing more for the world than the hyperactive humanitarian. I’m not sure I fully agree, particularly since many of those who claim to be on a spiritual path often seem unusually stupid to me. But the broader point makes sense to me. Buddha did more teaching the doctrines which were named after him than he could have had he spent his life preaching against war, or for vegetarianism, or for women’s rights. Among other things, his work has lasted.
Enough of all that. I’m going to go get a doughnut, and some really good coffee.