Monday, December 6, 2010

Questioning the usefulness of the 'government is family' metaphor.

Hullabaloo:

"If we can balance our budget, it should be simple for the
federal government to do the same!"
Image via getforeclosurerelief.com.

It's dumb. America isn't a family and managing a national economy isn't like managing a family budget. It isn't like a business either (the second most common stupid metaphor.) The government has a completely different set of responsibilities than other human organizing entities, and democratic government is designed to completely upend the authoritarian model of family, church and business and put the 'kids' in charge. Forgetting that is what gets us into trouble.
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