Re: Abortion, Economics, Politicians, Science, and Humanism
First, thanks for the detailed reply. The last thing I want is for people to read my blog and simply believe every word I say.
Anyway, you quoted Adam Smith, who says in the Wealth of Nations that “it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest.” I can see that many would consider this a selfish perspective. However, we need to break it down further to truly understand whether or not that is the case. Are the butcher, the brewer, and the baker selfish for wanting to put food on the table for themselves and their families? Can we attribute their hard work to any reasons other than the one mentioned above? Ironically, it is these “selfish” actions that contribute to the most socially optimal result. Smith’s competitive paradigm states that collective surplus is maximized when individuals follow their own selfish incentives. Empirical evidence shows that people follow their economic incentives first and foremost. “Rational” political systems founded on the basis of equality and hostile to free market economics have at best failed to improve its subjects’ standard of living. At their worst, they forced their people into states of destitution. But, as Smith suggested, people acting on their own selfish incentives leads to the most optimal outcome. It is more feasible to consider the redistribution of wealth once we have established a strong foundation. Economics is not about harming others to take profit. Equity is in itself an economic concept. An equitable system is merely an alternative to allocating scarce resources amongst those who desire them.
In many fields, addressing the inequities in the world is a major focus. Economics is no exception. However, this falls under a slightly different topic. We are now looking at the whole picture as opposed to the sum of its parts. We should take action in redistributing wealth to benefit the worst off, and as you have mentioned, economists are indeed doing so. Another thing to understand is that the world is not perfect. Perfect competition will never exist, and same goes for other economic principles that are too good to be true. It is because of this that people can take advantage of the economic inefficiencies in the world, creating an inequitable distribution of wealth in the world. Subsequently, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is just one more reason why politicians need to understand economics – in order to understand market flaws that contribute to major societal issues.
Plato once said that “one of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” With that said, I think that people in completely different fields will wish that the politicians knew more about their own field in order to do a better job running their country. I also believe that the person best fit to run a country is probably the person that knows a bit (better yet, a lot) about everything. We know that’s improbable at best.
To specifically address your concern of the lack of scientific background of politicians, let’s consider your example of harm reduction. Ideally, we would want to fix every existing issue in the world. But given the endless list of constraints, we cannot do that (this is the principle of scarcity). When some issues are taken with more urgency than others, it’s easy to notice the issues that have not sufficiently been taken care of. Canada currently has the strongest economy in th G7. We have a strong growth in employment rates, with 93,000 new jobs created last month, when the consensus estimate was 20,000.
By saying that politicians need to understand economics, I don’t mean that they should ignore science. I’d also like to note that I had previously said that politicians need to understand economics, and not be economists themselves. One does not need to be an economist to understand economics. By the same logic, one does not need to be a scientist to understand science, and the issues revolving around science. Without a great economy, a country simply cannot afford to spend money on advanced research, and such. Without having an intense scientific background, a politician is still capable of understanding the basics behind issues that can be mitigated by scientific means. Whether they do or do not attempt to understand those fundamentals is a whole other issue of politics.
You also said that, in your opinion, “politicians should be, first and foremost, human, as opposed to egocentric, profit-driven psychopaths”. The reason why capitalism works is because it is an empirical system which recognizes that people follow their economic incentives, instead of being told what incentives to follow. To understand how society functions, politicians need to understand that the average person is a self-interested individual looking for economic incentives. By no means did I imply that politicians should be self-interested individuals that have a complete disregard for the public interest. In fact, every president or prime minister’s own self interest is to advance the public interest.
You stated that “much social phenomena cannot be solely viewed through a cost-benefit analysis or profit-maximising perspective”. Unfortunately, in politics, and in law, we are often forced to put a price on everything, and conduct cost-benefit analyses. We put a price on pain and suffering (maximum is $300000, only quadriplegia, paraplegia, severe brain damage and similar injuries can be be paid near that amount), we put a price on the worth of one’s dignity, a price on one’s life, the list goes on. Of course, I agree that social phenomena should not be viewed through that perspective, but that is to be left to the minds of philosophers. Reality tells us that there is indeed a price on everything, but sometimes not on monetary terms. Economics is not necessarily about money, money is just the most practical way to quantify costs and benefits.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that we cannot equate one economist’s actions to that of all economists in that person’s position. Even if you do not support Mr. Harper, you cannot allow his actions to represent that of any one else’s. Not all economists have the same values and beliefs. More importantly, we cannot equate economists to self interested individuals that only care about profits while ignoring all other aspects of life. Having said that, the “biased” ideology that is characterized by self interest and profit is called capitalism. To disagree with that ideology, that induces a different conversation entirely.
Finally, I would like to add that, economics does not stop us from helping others, and it certainly does not stop us from changing the world. Individual self interest is one of the first things taught in economics for a reason. It’s just the beginning. It governs individuals from the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, as psychologists suggest. We first take care of our basic needs for survival, and then we want some comfort in knowing that we are safe, etc. Once we are capable, we can go on the help others, and change the world.
XOXO
