21 January 2011
Politics Is Not a Zero-Sum Game
In his 1/19/2011 essay, "Why We're a Divided Nation," Walter E. Williams contrasts market allocation of resources with political allocation. The former is presented as conflict-reducing, with a positive result from tolerance and collaboration. The latter is characterized as conflict-enhancing, with the award of a privilege to one group coming only at the expense of an opposing group.
Among the political issues that he says exemplify the antagonistic dynamic are racial preferences, school prayers, trade restrictions, welfare, and Obamacare. Personal preferences for computer technologies, music, and sports admirably escape such hostilities. Finding a cooperative way to resolve policy differences, like getting along with the devotees of alternatives to one's own tastes, is what politicians are supposed to do. Outside of life-and-death situations, there is always a way to achieve that cooperative goal. Those who confine political issues to the box of a zero-sum game usually are using its walls to force an outcome that is favorable to ulterior objectives, whether they be ideological or materialist.
In the end, human progress on this planet depends on our collaborating with each other to defeat common enemies like disease, poverty and ignorance--oh, and of course tyranny. If it's liberty we want above everything else, let it be responsible liberty, in which we do all we can to make our entire community healthy, wealthy and wise.
In his 1/19/2011 essay, "Why We're a Divided Nation," Walter E. Williams contrasts market allocation of resources with political allocation. The former is presented as conflict-reducing, with a positive result from tolerance and collaboration. The latter is characterized as conflict-enhancing, with the award of a privilege to one group coming only at the expense of an opposing group.
Among the political issues that he says exemplify the antagonistic dynamic are racial preferences, school prayers, trade restrictions, welfare, and Obamacare. Personal preferences for computer technologies, music, and sports admirably escape such hostilities. Finding a cooperative way to resolve policy differences, like getting along with the devotees of alternatives to one's own tastes, is what politicians are supposed to do. Outside of life-and-death situations, there is always a way to achieve that cooperative goal. Those who confine political issues to the box of a zero-sum game usually are using its walls to force an outcome that is favorable to ulterior objectives, whether they be ideological or materialist.
In the end, human progress on this planet depends on our collaborating with each other to defeat common enemies like disease, poverty and ignorance--oh, and of course tyranny. If it's liberty we want above everything else, let it be responsible liberty, in which we do all we can to make our entire community healthy, wealthy and wise.
Comments:
Post a Comment
