Monday, February 25, 2019

Why redistributionist ideas relentlessly build disaster.

Behind the stark melodrama of our political conflicts lies the progressive consensus: The collective use of power to pursue various policy aims depends on technical knowledge and science.

This view itself depends on certain contestable modern ideas about human nature and behavior that are matters not of science, but of ideas found in philosophical speculation.

The philosophical roots of different policies account for their conflicts with other policies, which cannot be adjudicated by science.

On the level of ideas that reflect notions of human nature, the self-styled "Brights" on the left are often the slaves of some defunct intellectual or outdated received wisdom, not the sober, rational followers of scientific facts.

Take the perennial progressive "Crisis" of income inequality.

Dig even deeper, and we find questionable beliefs about human nature as the foundation of these bad ideas.

Our debt, deficit, and unfunded entitlement crises-created by progressive redistributionist ideas accepted by both parties- are relentlessly building to disaster.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272923/bad-ideas-make-bad-progressive-policies-bruce-thornton

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