Things that were not immediately obvious to me

There’s a very, very bad idea out there that needs addressing. Here’s Seth Godin:

If a candidate wants to gain attention and possibly votes, then, it makes short-term sense to stir up fear of strangers and turn it into anger. It might even work (once). But it makes it virtually impossible to govern. It’s a short-term strategy that eats itself, because sooner or later, everyone is a stranger, and fear is no foundation for work that matters.

and here’s Peggy Noonan:

Only love makes great political movements. Movements based on resentment, anger and public rage always fade, they rise and fall, they never stay. If you came to play, get serious.

This is ahistorical, short-sighted, starry-eyed, foolish, dangerous claptrap. It might contain a grain of truth — maybe truly enduring movements can’t be built around negativity. But such movements can grow, and endure, and rule for quite a long time in political terms — more than long enough to ruin your day, or ruin your nation, or take your life, or take the lives of tens of millions.

If you were a Jew in 1930’s Germany, you would be unwise to take solace in the notion that the Nazi movement would eventually collapse. If you were a farmer in 1920’s Ukraine, you would soon regret thinking that the Bolshevik philosophy seemed a little too angry to last. In the long run, Godin and Noonan might be right, but “in the long run, we’re all dead”.

Actually, I prefer this formulation: “Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent.” As with markets, so with the world. The longevity of political movements means nothing to you, so long as they last long enough to hurt you.

By now, we’re all accustomed to talk about government action “stimulating” the economy. I wonder, though, if we give enough thought to how this can possibly work: How can government increase economic activity above its natural level — and why, if it can do so, doesn’t it do this all the time?

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