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Linda McQuaig and
the Cult of Evasion
Re: Michael's Interview with Linda McQuaig (Re: Her book -- Cult of Impotence) --
Mar. 22, 1998 -- CBC's This Morning
Dear Mr. Enright,
Your interview with Linda McQuaig convinced me that her new book, "Cult of Impotence,"
is not worth reading.
Consider just one example -- her suggestion that government should become less impotent
with respect to unemployment.
Ms. McQuaig regards John Maynard Keynes as a genius for proposing that government
spend its way to full employment. But where does the government get its money? It
extorts it from taxpayers.
According to Keynes' "logic," a bankrobber reduces unemployment because
he diverts our savings towards consumption. If you followed the bankrobber around
while he spends his loot you would no doubt see an increase in economic activity
and employment.
If you evade the fact that the money spent by the bankrobber is no longer available
for the banks to finance those who actually create goods and services, plus the fact
that certain individuals have been robbed of their personal savings -- you might
conclude that robbing banks is "good for society." In other words, if you
press your nose really hard to the tree in order to blank out the forest, you might
believe that governments actually create jobs.
Ms. McQuaig had the effrontery to suggest that corporations are responsible for high
unemployment because high unemployment allegedly benefits corporations. A corporation
doesn't have the power to create widespread unemployment -- only the government has
that power. She completely evaded the obvious role our not-so-impotent government
has played in keeping unemployment high. It did so by artificially raising the cost
of employment -- via the minimum wage, massive red tape, unemployment insurance,
punitive taxation, etc.
In essence, Ms. McQuaig wants a government that is less impotent in job creation
-- which in reality involves forcing people and corporations to become more impotent.
Her book, entitled "The Cult of Impotence," appears to be just another
example of what I call: "The cult of evasion."
Sincerely,
Glenn Woiceshyn
© 1998 Glenn Woiceshyn.
All rights reserved. This article can be found on-line at at http://www.capitalism.org/glennw. |
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