I was chatting with Marshall Auerback about some of my recent posts on Keynesianism and Austrian Economics — Marshall is a post-Keynesian — and he convinced me that my posts were somewhat misleading and that I had only presented half of the argument for stimulus. This led me to thinking about the role of government, stimulus and recession which I felt compelled to present here. Your comments are appreciated.
Government is redistributive
Let me start my argument this way: Government, by its very existence, is always redistributive. Therefore, a key role of government is to redistribute income. This statement is self-evident to some, but provocative to many. So let me explain why this is so.
Most reasonable people would agree that a large society requires government to maintain order, provide basic services and assemble military defenses. These are all considered basic roles of government. However, to take on these roles, government requires funding and this means taxation [in a fiat currency system, not to fund its spending but to give its currency value]. Now, taxes, by their very nature, are redistributive. Levying a tax on one person or one good takes money away from that person or that business and puts it in to the common pot. This is the definition of redistribution. Government cannot function without taxes and taxes are by their very nature a redistribution of income from some agents to others. Therefore, government is a naturally redistributive agent.
To my mind, the redistributive nature of government is obvious. In fact, it struck me as extremely disingenuous during the U.S. election this past year when John McCain led the Republican Party in admonishing Barack Obama for suggesting he was going to “spread the wealth” — as if that’s not axiomatic.
The real question is this: Because government must tax to maintain its existence or to ensure its control of the currency and this tax will redistribute monies from some agents to others, what are our priorities as a people as to how that redistribution should take place? Who should we tax, by what means and by how much? And who should receive the benefits of government spending and for what purposes? These are questions actually worthy of debate and are fundamental to democracy.
My answer is fairly straightforward: how we tax and how we spend government money depends on the economic, political and military situation, on the wisdom of our leaders and on the priorities of the people. There is no ideological answer to this question. One problem I have with the small government crowd is the ideological view that the answer must always be the same regardless of the circumstances we face. I certainly believe very much in limited government. I think most people would label me a Libertarian or a fiscal conservative. However, I am not ideological. I am pragmatic and I believe public policy must adjust to the specific requirements of the time.
I would add that limited government does not necessarily mean we should forgo universal health care for example. It is often argued that we need to get back to the days when government was smaller and America was a much better country. When was this? The last time I checked America was a much richer nation than it was in 1900 or 1950, or whenever those who want to return to the past are arguing. Do you really want to go back to 1900 when we had no safety net in America? I believe the lack of a social safety net is a major reason that the Great Depression was such a human trauma for the United States.
Moreover, government expenditures are less than a quarter of GDP in the United States today. It is much larger in Europe. It seems foolhardy to me that the so-called richest country on earth could allow tens of millions of its citizens to live without guaranteed access to free basic health care. What is the point of being a rich nation, then?
These are the questions that any democracy must answer regarding how it reallocates its resources through the taxing power of government.
Stimulus is necessary and warranted
This leads me to the question about stimulus. Where Marshall has a problem is with this statement: “So, my thinking is fairly simple: cushioning the fall with government stimulus will prevent worst-case outcomes — nothing more. It will not prevent depression.” from my post “What does Mises say about trying to stimulate the economy out of recession.” This statement focuses entirely on the recession and not at all on the recovery. It looks like this:
when it could look like this:
So, I would say this: in the absence of stimulus, the present global downturn would be much more severe. In fact, it could threaten systemic collapse — a rupturing of our entire financial system if allowed to continue without some measure of countervailing monetary and fiscal stimulus. Moreover, stimulus is likely to speed recovery. Therefore, stimulus mitigates worst-case outcomes and speeds recovery.
My argument here looks like this:
As to what form this stimulus should take, I will leave that argument for another day. I do feel that we need to invest in health care, education, energy and infrastructure. Obviously, massive stimulus means deficit spending. And I would anticipate this deficit spending to last many years, leaving a mountain of debt. However, the speeded recovery will be quite helpful in defraying the burden of that debt. And, let’s not forget that the alternative could be collapse.
The purpose of recession
My final argument involves the purpose of recession. In my view, policy makers, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world have long felt that avoiding recession is an important goal of economic policy. However, that view is misguided because it has led to an asymmetry whereby stimulus is applied in much greater amounts to end recession than to stop overheating. This asymmetry, often called the Greenspan Put when Alan Greenspan was Federal Reserve Chairman, is directly responsible for the build up of debt, leverage, over-consumption, and current account deficits in many of the Anglo-Saxon economies.
While painful, recession serves a useful purpose. It purges the excess of the preceding period. Avoiding recession leads to bubbles and bubbles lead to systemic risk and depression. It is far better to allow the recession to occur, mitigate its effect if necessary through limited fiscal or monetary stimulus than to risk a depression in which massive stimulus is necessary.
Those are my arguments. I would appreciate hearing yours.