As I hear about the recession, everytime I turn on the television, radio, etc., it makes one think that everyone in the US is staying at home (if they still have their home) and not spending any money.
Even in out small town where we have had some local employers close or cut back, we are still a community that is out supporting our economy by spending money. Most times when I go to a store, there is the "normal" amount of people doing their shopping.
As I go through my daily routine, I am constantly asking my clients how their business is going. Some say that things are slow, but most say that they are moving at a good pace, at least keeping up with last year, some exceeding, some a little behind, but on average most are keeping up.
So, given that everyone (in the media) says that we are in a recession, who is determining that? And why is it important for them to promote such things?
Just something to think about.
Shannon you have correctly observed the manufactured economic by the media and the political machine in this country. You have identified the present state of the state, and there are many people, me being one of them, that believe to a greater of lesser degree statism is the predominant political world view. Statism basically says the state is the Savior of its subjects. Or to put it another way the government will solve all your problems.
ReplyDeletePlease let me give a brief historical example of how statism developed in this country. The Puritan revolt in England during the 17th century significantly contributed to an increase in political thinking and theory. Political theory captured the attention of philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Hobbes was an advocate of a sovereign state. Locke argued for a limited government. Both of these political philosophers find common ground in our American style of democracy. The present public opinion of democracy has enslaved us to public opinion as a measure of truth or principle. Any such idea is foreign to the Puritan mind and an enemy to the Puritan republic.
Allan Bloom in his book, The Closing of the American Mind, reasons that "although every man in democracy thinks himself individually the equal of every other man, this makes it difficult to resist the collectivity of equal men." This however is another danger in our American democratic system. The result of two centuries of American democratic Federalism has produced the statism of our present day. Statism is the world and life view which gives the state all sovereignty and authority over its "collective equals." Webster defines it as "the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty. The state then becomes the savior of those collective equals.
I believe statism is the predominant political world view in this country.