Nice well constructed essay that gives lots of food for thought. It’s a shame that it has not got more traffic on Medium.
I liked you TV repair story of 1985. If I were to delve deeper, I suspect that 20 years ago there were good reasons for the TV Repair License in your city. I can quickly think of a couple. But I doubt the city council put a special motion on the floor that said: “Let’s tax new entrants into this industry” or “my TV Repair friends donated to my campaign so let’s limit their competition.” Rather, I believe, the original intent of the license is no longer applicable, but our legislative processes are unable to repeal laws that are no longer working. To me, that is a sign that our mechanics of governance are not working, not a sign of some socialist agenda picking on small business people.
Your “Growth-Oriented-Party” was interesting, but this thinking is being recognized at outdated. A couple of years back, I watched a PBS documentary where Republican judges in Texas, rather than convict small-time criminals, put them in programs with a mentor and job training. The cost, per participant, was less than putting them in jail. But if we are to emphasize growth — and de-emphasize socialist agenda, we should be building more jails. Do you prefer more jails or helping young men lead more productive lives?
As for national deficits, this has puzzled me since the early 1980s. Why aren’t more governments declaring bankruptcy more often? I have been trying to understand monetarist economics for some time. But I just can’t grok the magic. Yet there seems to be something there that keeps everything running well — if the magicians are using sound rules (which the years prior to 2008, the American magicians were not). In other words, the usual bookkeeping of families, non-profit societies, and the corporate world really doesn’t apply here. We just can’t transpose our sound family finances to government spending.
In 1968, Canada moved most health care services into the public sphere. A significant part of our economy went from capitalist to socialist. Health care is quite good in Canada, probably better than what average Americans receive with their byzantine insurance companies. Fifty-one years later, Canada has not turned into a Veneuzela or Soviet bloc country. There is responsible socialism.
And yes, the labels of “liberal” and “conservative” are blurry. So too are “socialist” and “capitalist”. The American farmer is directly or indirectly subsidized in many ways, yet would claim he/she is a capitalist.
