THE TRIALS OF LIBERALISM

I will be honest. I have no more experience with macro-economics than rightwingers, though I can stumble through a definition. Here is where I, and other Liberals like me differ from our self-righteous rightwingers: we do not criticize people who have more knowledge than us. We don't disavow people with degrees, or experience because we don't agree with them. You know, like climate scientists.

Many of us have actually done some reading of both sides of the macro-economic debate. Since we actually acknowledge history, we have noted a few, seemingly inescapable lessons favoring the Keynesian side of the balance sheet. Free-market economics, Laissez-faire economics, trickle-down economics, or any of the rightwing approaches to running the economy, have failed, indeed have never succeeded for any but a tiny few. It leads to austerity which leads to an economic collapse, which leads to the rise of right wing extremism and some kind of military strife. 

After the Free-market economy of the roaring twenties failed, and Herbert Hoover could not reverse the failure, it fell to FDR to try his hand at turning the economy around. He did, with the advice of a British economist, John Maynard Keynes. In fact, had the allies listened to Keynes advice, WWII may not have happened. Yes, I know it can't be proven but the austerity imposed on Germany led inevitably to the rise of Fascism and another despot with a funny hair-do and delusions of grandeur. At the end of WWII, Harry Truman, following in Roosevelts footsteps, extended Keynesianism to rebuild the war-torn economies of Europe, both sides. Later, it led to the Berlin Airlift of West Berlin. All of these successful attempts kept Russia, the Soviet Union, from gaining a toehold outside of Eastern Europe. The same history repeated itself after the Recession, brought on by "Trickle-down economics.

So, even though I am not the possessor with an economic sheepskin, or even a History degree, I can speak from a narrow place of knowledge. And if I should disparage rightwingers with actual economic degrees, I feel compelled to question whom they are serving. If it is Charles Koch, or some other funder of rightwing think tanks, then they will forgive me if I ask them why, after a century of trying, they have failed.

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