Thursday, August 13, 2009

Knowledge and healthcare

From Practical Economics

History and wisdom History is full of examples when knowledge was forced downward, upon the masses, by a command market approach. The associated calamities caused by such an economy are well documented by reading the history of the U.S.S.R, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Poland, and Mongolia just to name a few.

On the other hand, history has also defined the successful results of market economies where knowledge has flowed upward from the people. Unfortunately, even though history is full of guidance as to the success or failure of economic systems, many of the same economic mistakes continue to take place. Fortunately, it does not take a rocket scientist to evaluate and apply historical facts to current realities, but sadly, analyzing economies is something most people avoid. The bottom line as far as history goes is that knowledge by central planning is inefficient.

Unfortunately, many are still under the false impression that a command economy will work. Sure, the programs are given compassionate sounding names like Progressivism, New Deal, War on Poverty, Great Society, but calling socialism by another name by offering a tweak here or there will not make reality or the disastrous end results any different. To continue to reconstruct historically invalid economic models is Pollyannaish and has nothing to do with the material well-being of society. It does, however, have everything to do with the acquisition of power among men who care little for the people and much about their own personal gain.

The irony is that those who wish to command the economy will promote their agendas as the most compassionate and humanistic while at the same time be hard at work building temples of inefficiency, the cost is the suffering of the masses to a degree that is cruel, yet unfortunately, not unusual by historical standards.

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