The attitudes and opinions of some of the people who make up the so-called “elite” today (the opinion leaders that researcher Deirdre Makolski defines as “clerisy” – the educated class or alternatively the clergy) are explicitly childish. Most of the journalists and writers working in the major media and entertainment companies, along with most of the public lecturers and intellectuals, think, speak and write about human society using insights in Ramat Kindergarten.
This sad truth is disguised through one characteristic that does differentiate between elite people and young children: virtuosity and rebelliousness. But beneath all the beautiful words, wonderful expressions, powerful images and fabricated allusions, lies a marked mental immaturity: every social or economic problem has a solution, and the same solution is almost always superficial.
Unlike children, adults understand that a decent and good life begins with accepting the inevitable existence of permutations and the need to weigh them. Contrary to what you may have heard, in life it is impossible to have everything. You will not be able to receive more from this thing unless you are willing to receive less from that thing. And what is true of you as an individual is true of any group of individuals.
It is not possible for example to artificially bounce the costs of production and use of fuels, if you are not willing to pay higher prices at the gas station, and accordingly hold less money that will allow you to purchase services and other products. It is not possible to use money printing today to alleviate the damage of the closures in Corona, without suffering greater inflationary damage tomorrow.
While children stomp on their little feet when they encounter the need to weight changes, the necessity of the changes and their weighting is accepted as a natural and logical thing among older people. And no less important – adults, unlike children, are not deceived by superficiality.
Notice how the elite members (most, though not all, of whom are prone to progressive views) offer to “solve” almost any problem, real or imagined. You will find that the proposed “solution” is superficial; It is based on the naive assumption that the social reality that is beyond our immediate environment does not exist, or is not affected at all by attempts to reorganize natural phenomena. In the eyes of the elites, the only reality that matters is the immediate reality that can seemingly be easily corrected through coercion. The “solutions” they offer, then, include simply reorganizing, or attempting to reorganize, natural phenomena.
Are there people who use guns to murder other people? Unfortunately, yes. The superficial elitist “solution” to this real problem is to outlaw weapons. Are there people with significantly greater economic value than other people? Yes. The childish elitist “solution” to this false problem is to impose heavy taxes on the rich and pass them on to the less rich. Do some of the workers in America today earn too low a wage to support the family? Yes. The simplistic elitist “solution” to this false problem is to get the government to ban the payment of wages that are below the stated minimum.
Do some people suffer significant damage to property and body due to hurricanes, droughts or other weather damage? Yes. The lazy elitist “solution” to this real problem focuses on trying to change the weather by reducing carbon emissions. Do many product prices rise sharply due to various, natural and other factors? Yes. The opposite elitist “solution” to this fake problem (“reverse” and “fake” because high prices accurately reflect and signal an economic reality) is to ban their collection and payment. When inflationary pressures increase due to excessive monetary growth, are these pressures reflected in rising prices? indeed. The childish altistical “solution” to this very real problem is to blame the “greed” and raise more taxes on profits.
Are many Americans still not getting a reasonable level of education in the public school system? Yes. The lazy elitist “solution” to this real problem is to raise teachers’ salaries and pay more money to failed school principals.
Do some U.S. workers lose their jobs when Americans buy more imported products? Yes. The elitist “solution” is to restrict consumers’ ability to purchase them. Yes. The elitist “solution” to this real problem is to outlaw “hatred” and force the fanatics to act as if they are not. Are there people who are eligible to vote in elections but refrain from doing so? Yes. The preferred “solution” by some elites to this fake problem (“fake” because in a free society everyone has the right to abstain from active participation in politics) is to make voting at the ballot box mandatory.
This is just an abbreviated list of simplistic “solutions” to real and imagined problems and can be easily expanded. For elite people who confuse words with reality, the guideline that a successful verbal description of reality is convenient to them proves that this similarity can become true if only we reorganize the relevant natural phenomenon. Elite members ignore unintentional consequences, and turn a blind eye to the fact that the social and economic realities they despise are the result not of deliberate despicability or defects that can be easily repaired, but of a complex weighting of changes done daily by countless individuals.
Social engineering seems to make sense and applies only to those people who focus on a single phenomenon on the surface, and remain blind to the immense complexity beneath the surface that creates the same phenomenon. The perception of reality of those people is similar to that of children: it can be easily distorted to achieve anything that the distorted desire.
The elite ranks today are filled with people with simplistic thinking who confuse words and good intentions with serious thinking. They present to each other, and also to the innocent public, a front of deep thought, when in practice they seldom apply more complex thinking than that which you would find in a kindergarten or school classroom.
Prof. Don Boudrow is a lecturer in economics at George Mason University, and a fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research – AIER. A full version of the column was first published on the AIER website and I thank the institute for the authority to publish it.