The other day someone (who may contribute to this blog in this future) that will be referred to here by the handle: Neutral Man, Semi-Pro Academic, showed me a videos of a Creationist who has wasted spent a lot of time on his work. The evolution debate is one where neither side can declare definitive and absolute victory, as “we weren’t there bro.” Despite the fact that it has holes and there are legitimate criticisms, evolution is easily the more viable theory. This debate reminded me of an interesting “truism”… Many of those who identify themselves as evolutionists because “religion is silly”, believe in what amounts to creationism when it comes to economics.

What do I mean by economic creationism? In this theory, one is to believe that Government drives the economy start to finish, thus when rich corporate greed head fat cats “have too much money” (because we can be the arbiter of that), it must be because Republicans/”they”/Conservatives/WhoeverTheWhinerInQuestionDoesn’tLike is manning the faucett and simply distributes more droplets of concentrated GDP to them. They would practically have you believe that during the 1990′s, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich went up a mountain side, and when they came down from that mountain side, they built the “ocominy” in 6 days, having bi-partisan break on the 7th.

What is the “ocominy”? See the actually economy is where millions of goods and services are exchanged via the choices of consumers and entrepreneurs and yada yada. The “ocominy” is like the economy, only it can be regulated to perfection, Government runs the spickets by which to distribute the income, and there is no such thing as the demands of consumers – thus it cannot change. The “ocominy” grows when the mean corporate fatcats give it food/capital, and when it doesn’t get fed, the Government “has to” feed it. You simply turn a dial, and out comes happiness; but the mean people don’t want to turn the dial, because we have to raise taxes to turn the dial. Bill Clinton turned the dial by raising taxes (which must have been the cause of economic growth), fed the ocominy, and all was happy in the land. This line of thinking is so silly you would think that L. Ron Hubbard wrote it. Ironically many of the Hollywood actors who believe in that man’s writing also believe in these silly government-creationism ideas.

I will not waste your time in explaining the other theory in full detail. I will instead say: “Millions of people engage in the business process by choosing or not choosing goods and services, investing in businesses, and working jobs – in a complex ‘machine’ that has millions of moving parts.” They’re of the opinion that when politicians claim they can simply steer the economy in a direction they like, or create an entire industry because they like it (when investors were so confident about it they would NOT risk their own money on it, that’s not a good thing), and they can decree what the future is, those politicians might as well say this:

A good many other people are more economic-agnostic. Sometimes when folks are not familiar with the facts, and there are two sides who are very vehement about their own visions, they may reconcile this by defaulting to the middle. Research and having to make a call on what is right or wrong is hard, so by staying the in the middle one can claim a moral victory for the price of less work and less research! This is a “magic middle”, exactly the one referred to in politics. Imagine for a moment that Party A comes out and argues that we need to build a bridge (or high speed rail) over a canyon because it’s stimulus and it’s good for the economy, and it will cost $1 Trillion dollars. Party C comes out and says it’s ridiculous, we shouldn’t build the bridge, we don’t have the money, all that jazz. Well, members of the magic middle helicopter in and use their superior powers of logic and moral high-horsery to propose Plan B: Build half a bridge, pay $500 million dollars! That way no one is happy, except for those in the middle who have little stake in the argument. But this is preferable because  it’s “fair” in a very abstract sense that neither Party A or Party C got their way, and it helped the believers of Plan B sleep at night.

Who comprises the magic middle? It’s not the “middle class” as 95% of people see themselves as middle-class when polled. Besides, politicians looking to gin up fear for votes have long been telling us that the “middle” statistical category title is becoming non-existent anyway. The ranks of the magic middle comprised of people who are too busy or can’t be bothered to take a hard look at both sides and make a choice. It is also populated by people who are trying to appear virtuous by not really offending either side enough to earn their ire. Those in the “main stream media” who aren’t oconimic-creationists are usually Magic-Middle-Economic-Agnostics.
(By mainstream media I of course mean the fabled “MainStreamMediaMonster” the right keeps talking about. We’ve never seen it, and the definition seems to change from time to time as does its roster, as does its deeds… It’s never been seen per say, but this is the best artist’s rendition I’ve seen):

The MSM in particular is very fond of economic agnosticism. They have long tried to halve the well-intentioned but inefficient ideas of the oconimic-creationists, and the free-market-economic-evolutionists, glue them together, and proclaim victory before they ever see the results. I understand how it happens, and I understand why, but I’m inclined to laugh when I see it.

In conclusion: I look at Free Markets as very analogous to evolution. They incorporate the experiences of millions of organisms and their choices made over time. They’re not always “fair” in the abstract sense, as species can die out, especially ones we like. They are not perfect, as in life there is never a “perfect” anything, only trade offs- but both systems are the best things available.