Loyal Opposition?

Competition in the marketplace produces several benefits. For the consumer: lower prices, better products and services. For businesses, motivation to produce the best products and services while doing so for a fair price that still covers their costs and labor. For the economy competition produces motivation for innovation among entrepreneurs and producers, innovation that advances applied technology and science, meeting more consumer needs that previously had gone unattended, and creation of new methods, efficiencies and more jobs.

Similarly, competition in the marketplace of ideas creates benefits. Rubbing ideas against each other causes deeper thinking, better articulation of meaning, and a swelling of value of the ideas themselves. Crossing ideas with one another produces remarkable new ideas as well. Think of engineering and medicine, then realize medical advancements in treating so many diseases. Manmade blood that cross matches more easily among blood types improves hospital blood supplies available in emergencies. Fake bone material that grows in place and is accepted by the receiving body without rejection is another advancement. Three-D printing that helps create replacement body parts that avoids rejection by the host recipient is yet another miracle of new ideas. And much more; just think of replacement body parts, valves, organs and what all.

Study of any academic discipline yields benefits. Society gains understanding, businesses discover new needs and products, institutions uncover new vistas to analyze and find new potential of discovery.

Competition is good for us.

Sometimes not for some. When people fear competition and seek power to to block competitors, that leads to blocking progress like in legislatures and Congress. Raw numbers of votes among the players are used not to perfect anything. They are used to manufacture power, influence, and favor. If these yield benefits for the people and society, then it is OK. Most often it is not OK because it thwarts discussion, discovery and potential.

The current attempt to renew public infrastructure is an example. Mitch McConnell and other voices of the Republican Party claim the infrastructure proposal is too expensive, potentially creating too much demand for goods and services that will spark inflation and economic chaos. If that is true, let the discussions begin and use experts in the various fields to guide the discussion. Sound bites entice but logic is more stable and informative. Power is heady but power to create is desired as opposed to power to destroy or frustrate.

The marketplace of ideas is not a debate. It is not argument. Rather it is reasonable, logical finding of fact and producing broader understanding that leads to innovation, discovery, and improvement of quality of life. This is worthy of our attention. And our discipline. Games are neither. Sheer politics is a game dressed up as something else.

It is time for logic, fact, discipline - and commonweal - to guide the work of our legislatures and Congress. For too long they have been up to shenanigans that have wasted time and resources. We have neither to waste.

Get on with your duty.

April 8, 2021