Too many choices; Republican deregulation; Free-market consequences in Texas; Conspiracy theory driven political parties.
NYT, 2 March, Paul Krugman: Too Much Choice Is Hurting America, subtitled, Learning from subprime, health care and electricity.
This evokes a couple things. First, observations from modern psychology that the great range of choices, say in supermarkets, doesn’t make people happier; rather, not having to deal with such choices, and being uncomfortable that you may have made the wrong decision, simplifies the world and makes it easier to deal with.
Second, my philosophy of shopping, compared to how many other people shop. I’ve known people who spend hours or days examining every possible option, every available price point, before making even a simple purchase (e.g. sun glasses). This is a reason I don’t like shopping; I’m in and out, find something that works, and be done with it. My argument in support of my approach is that, once you make your purchase and bring it home, all thoughts of the alternatives vanish. You won’t remember the sightly different sound system option in your car, once you have your car home and are driving it around.
Krugman finds examples in the health-care system, financial system before the 2008 financial crisis, and the variety of Medicare plans currently that one must choose from. (I’ve had this last one myself, and for now, this year, gave up.)
And in the real world, too much choice can be a big problem.
The lesson of subprime mortgages, health insurance and now Texas electricity is that sometimes people offered too much choice will make bigger mistakes than they imagined possible. But that’s not all. Too much choice creates space for predators who exploit our all-too-human limitations.
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And it’s all unnecessary. We’re a rich country — and citizens of other rich countries don’t worry about being bankrupted by medical expenses. It wouldn’t take much to protect Americans against being scammed by mortgage lenders or losing their life savings to fluctuations in the wholesale price of electricity.So the next time some politician tries to sell a new policy — typically deregulation — by claiming that it will increase choice, be skeptical. Having more options isn’t automatically good, and in America we probably have more choices than we should.
On a similar note,
The Daily Beast, 22 Feb, Cliff Schecter (via The Week, March 5 issue): The GOP’s Perfect Free-Market Storm Just Devastated Texas, subtitled, Today the nine most terrifying words in the English language may actually be “I’m a Republican politician and I run your government.”
President Ronald Reagan once claimed, in that jovial, grandfatherly voice that often concealed the impact of his words, “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
Thirty-five years worshiping at the altar of free markets and deregulation later, America has gone from being perceived by most countries as “a city on a hill” to a nation that sometimes has actual bread lines. (Wasn’t this one of the things we didn’t like about the Soviet Union?).
The Week summarizes:
The needless death and suffering were a logical result of a free-market “fetish” that has gripped the GOP since the Reagan era, leading to the 2008 meltdown of derivatives and banks, opposition to Obamacare and Medicaid, and the disastrous handling of the pandemic. Thirty-five years after Reagan, the “nine most terrifying workds in the English language may be ‘I’m a Republican politician and I run your government.'”
This is the problem with “small-government” — it removes regulations and protections that prevent scammers, whether businesses or conspiracy theorists, from preying upon a gullible public.
One more, tangentially related to the above. Again, via The Week, February 26 issue.
Politico.com, 30 January, Zachary Karabell: Here’s What Happens to a Conspiracy-Driven Party, subtitled, The modern GOP isn’t the first party to embrace huge conspiracies. But the lessons should be sobering.
Opening:
The rise of QAnon beliefs in Republican politics has been treated with a degree of shock: How could a fringe Internet conspiracy theory have worked its way into the heart of a major political party? The ideas behind the QAnon movement are lurid, about pedophilia and Satan worship and a coming violent “storm,” but the impact is real: Many of the pro-Trump Capitol insurrectionists were QAnon supporters, as is at least one elected Republican in Congress.
The long article goes on to remind of past political parties in the US (the reactionary, conservatives ones), that have disappeared into the dustbin of history, as some are saying might happen with the Republican Party.
As tempting as it to take the rise of conspiracy theories as a singular mark of a partisan internet-fueled age, however, there’s nothing particularly modern or unique about what is happening now. To the contrary. Conspiracy theories as they say, are as American as apple pie — as are their entanglement with nativist politics.
With examples of the American Party, aka the “Know Nothings,” in the 19th century.
Much like QAnon, the Know Nothings started life as a secretive cabal convinced that the country was being controlled by an even more secretive cabal — and much like Trump-era Republicans, their anxieties were rooted in a country that seemed to be changing around them.
Responding in part to immigrants from Ireland — that would be my family!
The article goes on about how the Know Nothings split apart into factions (as perhaps the Republicans are doing now), and the Republican-led “Chinese Exclusion Act”.)
Conspiracy theories, which were the core DNA of the Know Nothings, have coherence in their way, but they do best when they avoid the light of public scrutiny. As a local phenomenon, Know Nothingism thrived; as a national movement, it could only go so far before it splintered, fractured and collapsed.
