believing in magic

david boaz (president of the Cato Institute)'s article in the la times reminds me of another seattle thought. the article gets into much more complex ideas, but the idea of "government magic" made me think of this...

we were in a shop at the fabulous pike place market that had all sorts of prints and hundreds of old magazines and newspapers. despite a pact to keep my wallet firmly in my pocket, i ended up buying a haunting mucha print and an early 1900's anti-capitalist propaganda poster. after we made our purchases, we asked the hippie proprietor a question - how's business? the response was not shocking: business is slow. the shop has been losing money for a while now, and she even had to stop ordering new stock for the time being. there was a definite edge to her voice, a fleck of despair. at the end of her lamentations, with clenched fists she exclaimed that hopefully, with a new president, they'd be back on track in no time. the only response i could muster was "well, let's not put all our hopes in one event." her proclamation had caught me off guard, but i don't think her mentality is unusual.

in times of hopeless perhaps it's natural to seek one a one-shot solution. it's simple, it's easy. just get one party elected, and everything else will fall into place. it makes a politician's job so much easier - vote for me and i'll solve all of your problems. it's disturbing to believe that a situation is complex and that there are hundreds of events that must align to change something - and worse yet, that most are not under our direct control.

la times link via cafe hayek

Labels: political, social