| Akvod said: Why is economics being considered as a political ideology? >.< If you believe in sticky wages, and believe that people don't build in expectations of inflation immediately if there isn't a consistent and recent history of inflation in that nation, I think it's reasonable to believe that Keynesian policy can work. I mean Republicans want to cut taxes, and Democrats want to increase Government Spending. Both are fiscal policy I mean, there might be some differences like Republicans believing tax cuts have a bigger MPC (basically, people feel more confident about their life time wages when they get more income as a result of the tax cut, rather than getting a stimulus), but there are economists, not political scientists, doing that sort of research. Economics should be rational, it should be about expedience, not about philosophy. Philosophy is shit like Marxism or Social Darwinism. We need to purge shit like that from our minds. |
Utimately, it still comes down to economic liberty and economic authoritarianism through government interventions, which can manifest itself in many ways. That would be why its on the chart. The chart was developed to better equate 'right and left' on not just an X axis, but a Y axis as well. It is political because politics heavily influences government regulations, as well as financial freedoms for people. For example, a lefist economy is much more planned, and focuses on the need for government to provide a large group of services for people via nationalization, excessive taxes, command & planned economies of scale, whereas a rightist economy would provide much less restriction for businesses and people. This is the same coin of arguing civil liberties, as governments have a large say in what is acceptable and unacceptable in private practices.
For example, one may say that Pol Pot was a leftist, and Pinochet was fanatical right....In what ways, exactly? In some ways they were indeed two extremes, but in others, they were very similar. That is why there is both an X and Y axis, instead of a simply one-dimensional graph. That way, polarization is more than a simple 'liberal versus conservative' argument.
Economics should be rational, but like any system of ideas, it can be influenced by a person's worldview. Some people prefer the government to have a larger, more controlling aspect of how the market works. Another example would be O-D-C and myself. Socially, we both prefer that the government stay out of most social aspects of life. However, we largely disagree on how the government should handle monetary issues. I would imagine that he is for welfare, social security, more government regulations and restrictions to businesses, and so on, while I favor the exact opposite. That is why economics are there 
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
