Odds for optimism are 5:1 against

Related Link » 'Basically an Optimist'—Still
The Nobel economist says the health-care bill will cause serious damage, but that the American people can be trusted to vote for limited government in November.

“Capitalism has produced the highest standard of living in history, and yet markets are hard to appreciate? Prof. Becker explains: ‘People tend to impute good motives to government. And if you assume that government officials are well meaning, then you also tend to assume that government officials always act on behalf of the greater good. People understand that entrepreneurs and investors by contrast just try to make money, not act on behalf of the greater good. And they have trouble seeing how this pursuit of profits can lift the general standard of living. The idea is too counterintuitive. So we're always up against a kind of in-built suspicion of markets. There's always a temptation to believe that markets succeed by looting the unfortunate’. […] I read aloud from an article by historian Victor Davis Hanson that had appeared in the morning newspaper. ‘[W]e are in revolutionary times’, Prof. Hanson argues, ‘in which the government will grow to assume everything from energy to student loans’. Next I read from a column by economist Thomas Sowell. ‘With the passage of the legislation allowing the federal government to take control of the medical system’, Dr. Sowell asserts, ‘a major turning point has been reached in the dismantling of the values and institutions of America’. ‘They're very eloquent’, Prof. Becker replies, his equanimity undisturbed. ‘And maybe they're right. But I'm not that pessimistic’. The temptation to view markets with suspicion, he explains, is just that: a temptation. Although voters might succumb to the temptation temporarily, over time they know better. ‘When I think of my children and grandchildren’, he says, ‘yes, they'll have to fight. Liberty can't be had on the cheap. But it's not a hopeless fight. It's not a hopeless fight by any means. I remain basically an optimist’.” [emphasis added]
— By PETER ROBINSON, MARCH 26, 2010 (WSJ)

To paraphrase the famous E. F. Hutton commercials, "When Drs. Becker, Hanson, and Sowell talk, people listen." I certainly do, and I recommend reading the entire WSJ interview with Prof. Becker.

Unfortunately, Hanson and Sowell are largely pessimistic about our children's and grandchildren's futures, while Becker's optimism is guarded. These (admittedly) anecdotally-based 5:1 odds against optimism (treating Becker's as a 50:50 proposition), however, do not inspire optimism for an optimistic future, if I might be permitted such a self-referential premise.

Our world is a very dangerous place. Just today, terroristic explosions in Moscow's subway system, with many fatalities and many lesser casualties, underscore the precarious international situation. And, baffling as it may be, there is no clear consensus on how to deal with it. Everywhere you look, among multinational regions, nations, states, political ideologies, and ever finer granularities of demographics, dissension reigns supreme.

And the differences are not trivial. Sowell's A Conflict of Visions "presents a provocative analysis of the conflicting visions of human nature that have shaped the moral, legal and economic life of recent times." And such socio-political beliefs are held with religious fervor. Some people, and I use the term advisedly, are literally blowing themselves up for their beliefs.

The situation is far from amenable to simple solutions. With so much dissension, exacerbated by so much ignorance of history, sociology, and especially economic theory, my instincts tell me that only pragmatism can make any headway through the morass. We must, at least until we simplify the task by eliminating certain obvious obstacles, return to basics, namely, learn what we can do and, more importantly, what we must not do based on historical evidence and sound economic principles. Just imagine what could have been accomplished with the enormous expenditures of wealth, time, and energy that have been wasted on "fixing" what was once the best healthcare ever assembled by man or beast.

h/t Theo

Post #1,178 Odds for optimism are 5:1 against