The New Way -- Good
In the new post-ideological Obama Era, we can now frame the argument a little differently. Now the assumption is that we don’t know whether tax cuts or government spending is more effective in stimulating the economy. We search for facts. But given the complexity of the global economy, our collective experience does not provide us with a clear answer. The solution, therefore, is to do both and hope for the best.
This is a classic American solution. Test both theories and see if either of them works. It is inherently pragmatic and empirical. It pleases those of us who care about facts, and believe in the power of small steps forward. Let’s do what we can and see what we can do.
It does not please the ideologues of either extreme, many of whom want to be right more intensely than they want to help revive the economy. But I say, screw them. Nutcase ideologues got us into this mess. Now it’s time for those of us who believe in factual reasoning – not failed theories – to assert ourselves.
Schrödinger’s Cat
In the post-ideological Obama Era the “liberal” and the “conservative” arguments become superposed, like the particle that may or may not have killed Schrödinger’s Cat. Both propositions can be true, and both can be false simultaneously. Until we open the box, the cat is both alive and dead. Her condition is superposed. We cannot presume to know the outcome of the experiment until we take the measurement – and open the box.
In economic arguments there are even more possibilities than just alive or dead. In the example given above, both propositions may be true, either may be true and the other false, or both may be false. Perhaps we will discover that both tax cuts and government spending stimulate the economy. (If economists believe anything universally, they believe this.) Perhaps we will discover that one does and the other doesn’t, or that neither does. Or perhaps we will discover nothing at all, because the data will be so complex that we will never be able to agree on what the data show. That’s by far the most likely outcome, but it’s not certain.
Sooner or later the economy will be revived, and both sides in the debate will take credit for it. “It was tax-cuts that saved the economy! Was not! It was all those roads and bridges we fixed, and the schools we repaired… Ya de ya de ya.”
Enough! At that point, we skeptical empiricists, our insights no longer required, will recede into the background and the debate will resume along pretty much the same lines as before. But we will tune it out, as we did for many years prior to 2008, because we know that in a fact-free debate, both sides are full of crap.
Skeptical empiricists of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our quantum uncertainty.
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