Sunday, April 22, 2012

UTT - Blog Post 19


Response to Michael Moore’s statement: “I’m kind of tired…and bored of debating a sixteenth century economic philosophy versus a nineteenth century economic philosophy. It’s the twenty-first century. Can’t we come up with something new?”

        Well, this is actually a pretty easy statement to respond to, because it’s so basically nonsensical. To begin, though, I’ll put a little background up on this: Michael Moore is saying that he is sick of hearing a “sixteenth-century economic philosophy” (Capitalism) being debated with a “nineteenth century economic philosophy” (Socialism and, eventually, Communism). So, that’s where he’s coming from when he makes that statement.
        To respond to it is simple, though: Why ignore things that are still relevant today just because they were created several hundred years ago? We use concepts born since the beginning of time and never have any issues with them—an idea is an idea wherever it comes from, and if a better option isn’t out there, then we use what we have. Just because it was created in a past century doesn’t make it any less valid if it is still applicable in today’s markets, which both ideas have proven to be.
        I guess, from my viewpoint, his statement is simply nonsensical in nature. It’s not an applicable argument towards why something should or shouldn’t be applied to economics; “I’m tired of hearing about this” doesn’t make it any less true. If those are the two reigning economic models in the world today, then they are what we have to work with. The “new” ones that he seems to want to badly really haven’t panned out at all. In fact, they don’t even appear on a decent-sized scale because they simply aren’t plausible. Simply because something was created at a later date doesn’t always make it better.
        So, in conclusion, then, I would say that his statement isn’t a valid one. It implies a lot that isn’t the case and tries to ignore a debate due to irrelevant factors. If he wants to push an agenda, it would be nice if he could at least use an argument that works with facts rather than just opinion.

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