One Long Infomercial – but With a Difference
by Don Boudreaux on May 6, 2011
in Other People's Money,Politics
I returned home a few nights ago from teaching a late class to find my son asleep on the couch. He fell asleep with the t.v. on. By the time I got home, one of those absurd late-night infomercials was playing. I looked at it only long enough to determine that it featured a hip-looking young man explaining to an older, supposedly verily impressed host how he (the hip young man) has made “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in just a few months by investing in real-estate. (Note that the year is 2011!)
And this hip young man – he looked so earnest! – was eager to share with every viewer his fail-proof secret of success. “If I can do it, you can too!” the hip young man assured the no-doubt rapt and grateful audience out there in late-night tv land.
So it dawned on me. Infomercials are the closest phenomenon that the private-sector offers to politics. Fraudulent clowns, skilled at lying, promise gullible audiences something for nothing.
The difference, of course – and it makes all the difference – is that no one is forced to buy (either figuratively or literally) whatever it is the infomercial clowns are selling. And those of us who don’t buy these clowns’ offerings aren’t forced nevertheless to suffer the consequences of the fact that large numbers of our fellow citizens do consistently, even eagerly, fall for the idiotic claims and promises and assurances offered by these greedy imposters posing as our friends.
At the very least, it’s a regrettable fact that all of us have much of our lives ‘governed’ by people who watch infomercials. Those viewers vote. And so politicians obviously appeal to these fools for their votes. And everyone suffers from the resulting absurdities that emerge as “public policy.”
What a joke politics is.
cafehayek.com
From the comments
Mark May 6, 2011 at 2:02 pm
I agree.
Politics is absurd, yet I still pay attention.
Though the system, and politics is imperfect, what is the better option?
I don’t think there is one.
16 Don Boudreaux May 6, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Private markets.
17 Methinks1776 May 6, 2011 at 2:06 pm
So much more satisfying voting with my dollars than voting at the polls.
18 Tom May 6, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Isn’t that an argument against democracy? After all, in the private market, those with the most resources call the tune.
19 Emil May 6, 2011 at 3:39 pm
No they don’t because in private markets there are many tunes and no one is powerful or resourceful enough to control them all…
20 Sam Grove May 6, 2011 at 3:59 pm
They usually acquire many resources by satisfying the many.
If fact, the purpose of having so many resources is to organize to satisfy the desires of the many…at least in the market.
21 Stone May 6, 2011 at 4:26 pm
In free markets, consumers “call the tune.” In regulated markets, producers to use laws to tell consumers what to do. Obama care is a recent example; insurance companies use the new laws to force people to buy insurance from them, and they also make it illegal for any company to offer low cost health insurance...
cafehayek.com |
