So, how is Big Govt a Cargo Cult? It’s basically about the attempts by govt to produce economic and social results that mimic the successes of our free enterprise system and our social system of citizens enjoying personal, economic, religious and political freedom.
Govt keeps trying to mimic those forms without doing the actual work, hoping to get results that never come.
A great example is Keynesian economics. The belief is that if the govt imitates what the private sector does, that is, spends money to make money, that prosperity will magically result.
The truth is, the money that private sector investors spend to make money represents value created whose consumption has been postponed. When govt spends money, it has only taken it from the people who earned it, and which does not represent any value created by the govt. So, when the govt spends that money, it doesn’t create value, since the govt doesn’t follow the rules private individuals have to follow to turn their spending into prosperity.
It’s the same with social programs. Money is confiscated and spent, in the vain hope that society will be improved, but it never works, since the rules of improving society, which involve being responsible for the consequences of one’s actions, are never followed by govt giveaway programs.
In a very interesting article in the American Thinker, Randall Hoven describes Obama as a Cargo Cult President, and he makes some very good points.
If we really want to come out of this Obama recession, there is only one way: abandon the Cargo Cult practices of Big Govt, and follow the rules of individual fiscal conservatism.
