We've noticed something "odd" about Twitter followers and Facebook friends of the Just Third Way. When we say something vaguely "nice" or attack a bad idea (e.g., capitalism, socialism, watching reality TV), we gain a follower or two. Not rocking the boat and pasting a vacuous grin on your face makes you acceptable, while hating the right things makes you popular, even revered.
When we point out flaws in something and suggest a corrective or solution, however, our faithful followers seem to suffer a crisis of faith. They get nervous or outraged, and unfriend or de-follow us. Paradoxically, our friends and followers decline in number just as readership goes up — dramatically. The average readership of the Just Third Way blog has increased more than 500% over the past year.
Naturally, we have a theory. We think far more people support the Just Third Way than want to admit it. We think they're afraid of what someone else will say. Consequently, they stay hidden, or even try to say the "right" things to get in good with the people they're afraid will attack them if they say the "wrong" things.
It's like the Get Smart episode (that we couldn't locate for a clip to post) in which Agent 86 infiltrated a cell of bad guys, only to find out at the end of the show that the only real bad guy had died years before. All the other members of the cell were secret agents from the FBI, CIA, Interpol, and other organizations. Each of them was going along with acts of espionage, sabotage, etc., in the belief that the others would start thinking he wasn't one of "the guys," or kill him if he didn't go along to get along.
In other words, under the false belief that somebody else would do or say something to harm them, they went along with evil, even instigated it, all the while believing they were really doing good — ultimately.
Of course, such a thing could never happen in real life — at least, not in the dark underworld of secret agency, because that's controlled by government, and governments never make mistakes. Just in economics, where countless academic economists and politicians mindlessly follow the contradictory dictates of the Great Defunct Economist, John Maynard Keynes. If Keynes said it, it must be so . . . especially when it isn't.
One part of the problem with Keynes is that, despite his turgid two-volume Treatise on Money (1930), he did not understand money. Another part of the problem is that he did not understand logic. As we have seen in previous postings, Keynesian economics contains more than enough contradictions to keep the theoconomists (those who base their economics on faith instead of reason) busy for several lifetimes.
Another part of the problem with Keynes is that Keynes did not understand private property, what it is, or what it does.
The bottom line here is that it's probably better to base things like economics on reason instead of faith — whatever other people might say. It just seems to be the Smart(er) thing to do. Otherwise, you might miss the boat. Would you believe the train? How about a bus? A tricycle?
Sorry about that, Chief.
#30#