Virginia Postrel is one of my favorite economic documentary writers - up there with Malcom Gladwell, Michael Lewis, and Steven Levitt. I'm not sure what to label these guys, but there stuff is great. She is a bit more theoretical than the others and more interested in aesthetics. Anyhow, I've linked to her before, but here are some meta-thoughts on her theory about Stasis vs. Dynamists.
In her seminal book, The Future and Its Enemies, Virginia Postrel writes about the real political divide — not left versus right, but what she calls stasists versus dynamists. The former fear change and want to use government power to minimize it, if not eliminate it. The latter accept that improvements in the human condition require change by definition, and understand that the best way to ensure it is to allow individuals the freedom to make choices, with consequences, both good and ill, to be borne by them.
By these definitions, both presidential candidates in this election were largely stasists. Barack Obama wanted, and wants, to avoid the “change” of having people lose their jobs. John McCain wanted homeowners — even homeowners who didn’t really “own” their home by any sensible definition of that word, in that they had no equity in it — to “stay in their homes” and avoid the change of having to move out and rent. Never mind that in many cases they made no down payment. Never mind that in many cases they could probably rent for less than the mortgage they cannot afford. Never mind that in not selling or foreclosing, the day at which the market prices of the homes are determined, and the point at which we can discover the value of the paper that is based on them, is put off further into the future, delaying the bottom of the market and the resolution of the financial crisis. No, they must stay in “their” homes and not have to undergo “change.”
Ouch.
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