johaneriksson.se

Michael Strong has written an excellent defence of free market entrepreneurship and common decency in political (and intellectual) debates.

Our instincts to support those in our tribal coalition, and punish those outside of it, are just as primitive as are our predilection to eat too much fat and sugar, or the male appetite for female visual stimuli. But today we do not believe it is honorable to over-indulge in fat and sugar, nor for men to ogle women, nor for whites to lynch blacks. How can those who stand for “The Audacity of Hope” believe that they are being honorable when describe Mackey as “hateful and selfish”?

A lot would be gained if policy debates were held using proper arguments related to the issue at hand, rather than ad hominem attacks aimed at the inner motivations of the opponent. It is perhaps a natural urge to lash out at people who fundamentally disagree with your values, but it is an urge we should try to restrain — not because there are no people with bad motivations, but because those motivations are not relevant to the value of any particular policy. We will never avoid such irrelevant attacks entirely, of course — certainly I fail to do so every now and then — but it is an ambition worth striving for.

The entire article can be read here, in The Huffington Post surprisingly.

—-

HT: Don Boudreaux
Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, politisk debatt, fria marknader
Technorati Tags: politics, policy debate, free markets