JAMONOMICS

The financial crisis is taking its toll on the world's richest people, wiping 332 names off the Forbes Magazine's 'rich list' of world billionaires.

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People and politicians are now fixated with the economy and the response that governments are having worldwide in order to fix the worlds problems. It would seem like the majority of people are in favor of some sort of government intervention whilst there are a few who are absolutely against it and there are probably fewer who would favor a totally planned economy. Frequently we are bombarded about thoughts on what the governments involvement in the economy should be if any at all. Some calling for big government and some want small government.

What seems abundantly clear to me is that during the previous century, neither ideal has performed particularly well. The birth of the big government during the period after the great depression didn’t see a boom in the American economy, but what we saw was greater stability and overall growth. At the same rate, the deregulation of the Clinton years saw an economic boom along with the advent of a credit bubble dwarfed only by the current crisis and the great depression. Although Clinton had a higher approval rating than Bush when leaving office, both left an economy on the brink of destruction.

What we have to understand is that there is a trade-off that does not get popularized because this is not politically convenient for any politician to really say. The trade off is between slow sustained growth and quicker more sporadic and more volatile growth. Politicians would rather promise economic boom and prosperity rather than forecast slow growth. But with both of these comes their trade offs, one has severe economic implications while the other has political implications.

Towards "Rational Act(ions)"

The fundamental problem here is not a new one. It has perplexed our liberal philosophers from the conception of their thought. How does one get people to act rationally? How do you get people to make good decisions in a world where you may be rewarded for acting irresponsibly? Their answer was the nuclear family structure. If one have a spouse to look after and children to inherit our world, they believed that people would make all their decisions based on fear of implications for their families well being. Today, although professed to still be the best structure for families, it is slowly being eroded. Feminist have been the group of people dealing with this phenomena and trying to explain exactly why this is happening. Single parenthood is becoming for whatever reasons the most popular way of parenting in many ‘liberal’ societies.
What we now have is a breakdown in the functionalist’s societal workings. Some may be forced to call it a degeneration of society, but from a postmodern perspective, it may just be the next step(even though they don't believe in progress). What needs to happen is an adaptation process should occur and the government should be a facilitator. The economy and economic regulations needs to adapt to the social changes that have occurred. The current family structure does not serve the purpose of acting as moral fiber for the rest of society. Instead it acts as a consumption unit that is obsessed with elevating its lifestyle to a superficial iconographic image sold to us through the mass media.

The government is not equipped to deal with these problems, but they have great potential to support any positive change that might occur. Whether it comes from civil society, NGO’s or politicians themselves. But there is no set in stone way of doing this, society changes and so too should approaches. So in the words of Barack Obama – The question shouldn’t be whether our government is too big or small, but if it works.