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Keynesianism vs. Economic
Growth
by Glenn Woiceshyn
Published in the Globe and Mail (pg. B2) on Jan/09/97.
Dear Editor,
Re: "Feds Have Room To Raise Spending"--by Andrew Jackson--Jan/01/97--The
Globe and Mail
In the name of economic growth, economist Andrew Jackson wants Ottawa to spend more
and tax more.
His Keynesian/collectivist "wisdom" evades fundamental economic and moral
considerations. The key to economic growth is production and savings, not consumption.
Savings is unconsumed production -- it's the stock seed needed to finance future
production. To forcibly divert the earned savings of some to the unearned consumption
of others is economically and morally destructive. To a short-range mentality, watching
people engage in a wild consumption binge with extorted savings might look like economic
stimulation, but it will be short-lived and followed by another severe recession.
Governments are (properly) nonproductive entities; today, they get their money ultimately
by extorting it from productive individuals -- whether directly by forced taxation,
or indirectly by increasing the money supply and thus diluting our purchasing power.
(Funding of the proper functions of government--police, military, parliament, and
law courts to protect individual rights--could be achieved by non-coercive methods,
such as lotteries.) For Mr. Jackson to suggest that governments create jobs by spending
money extorted from productive people leads logically to the absurd idea that bank
robbers and credit-card thieves are good for the economy, while the police who pursue
them are bad for the economy.
Sincerely,
Glenn Woiceshyn
© 1997 Glenn Woiceshyn. All rights reserved.
This article can be found on-line at at http://www.capitalism.org/glennw. |
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