layman_economics on Nostr: When we spend our own money, we tend to spend it more wisely, compared to when we ...

When we spend our own money, we tend to spend it more wisely, compared to when we spend other people’s money.

I don’t anybody will disagree with that statement.

However, when we’re trying to solve problems in our society, our go-to method is to ask the government to do something to solve these problems.

And whose money will the government use to solve these problems?

The government’s? No! The government doesn’t have any money. We, the people, have the money.

It’s the money that the government gets from us which will be used to solve these problems.

In other words, when we ask the government to solve problems, we’re essentially asking the politicians and the bureaucrats to spend other people’s money (ours) solving these problems.

Is it so surprising that the money has been unwisely spent by these politicians and bureaucrats?

If we really want to solve the problems in our society, one thing we need to unlearn is the default habit of asking the government to solve problems for us.

For instance, instead of asking to ministry of education to solve problems of low-quality education, we need to learn to demand that our money (which has been unwisely spent to solve these problems) be returned to us so we can start using that money to solve these problems ourselves.

If we can’t unlearn this default habit of ours, things aren’t likely to get better.

#economics #government #money