Big Think

Greg Tully on April 11, 2009, 10:04 AM

Of course, the key question is: What is the appropriate degree of regulation, or, more broadly, government involvement in economic activity?—not literally whether NO regulation is advisable.

The dominant approaches to examining the appropriate degree of involvement seem to be ideological and absolutist, e.g. liberal vs. conservative.

Lately, I’ve come to believe that when these approaches are based on absolutist, ideological worldviews, they frequently result in the inquiry being wrongly and unproductively framed. Neither liberal nor conservative analyses are always either right or wrong, but at certain times and under certain circumstances, one or the other may provide the key insights that should be used as a basis for policy. Currently, it is the liberal approach to government involvement that is providing the key policy insights, but not because of any inherent superiority. Rather, the dominance of the conservative ideology for the past twenty-five plus years has resulted in key social policies, problems, and investments being underemphasized, underfunded, or ignored—to include the organization and funding of healthcare, environmental, educational, and science policies. This persistent, ideologically driven inattention over a very long period of time has brought us to the current array of crises each of which requires substantial governmental involvement and investment even if only to assure our future competitiveness. Once this is accomplished, there may again come a time when the hand of government is judged to be too heavy and oppressive and a correction in the opposite direction may be recommended. In my view, this is highly unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future. It would not surprise me if the effects of the investments and involvements now being proposed by the administration take the better part of a generation for their palliative effects to be realized.