Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Definition of a Liberal

When a government program does not seem to be working, the obvious solution is to spend more in the same manner (see Krugman, Tyson about the stimulus plan).

As Bill Easterly writes about foreign aid, if only we 'doubled' our expenditures, problems would be solved!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

throwing money at a problem is not good.

but do all "liberals" do this?

these labels are troublesome.
too general.

you have to look at what people do, then apply the label if you're so inclined.

instead of applying a label and presuming someone will act in accordance with your expectation for that label.

maybe we could identify "the democratic party" in america as throwing money at problems.

but still, we can't project that behaviour on every person who is associated with the party.

these genralised groups, "liberals", "democrats", etc. they are made up of individuals. just as corporations are. be careful about impersonalising them.

perhaps we should consider people one by one, instead of ascribing human characteristics to a nonhuman entity, be it a political party or other "fictional person", e.g. a corporation.

Martin said...

I agree with the Anon above. You run the danger of getting blinkered by partisanship: You could just as well say this sort of things about the definition of a conservative ("When a trumped-up war does not seem to be working, the obvious solution is to spend more in the same manner"), and it would be an equally simplistic snark.