Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame
Human rights will always come before economic prosperity for me. It's the fundamental core of why we exist and do things freely, and why we are privileged to enjoy that. Even playing field for all. Worse comes to worse you just live minimalist, learn how to be frugal, or move elsewhere for economic opportunity, at least in my opinion.
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I feel like the economic choice is a bit of a false dichotomy.
The last 3 or 4 conservative governments we had pissed away the Alberta advantage, allowed infrastructure to crumble, gave individuals money rather then considering the benefits of collective investment, and now they are buying the votes of those who can provide for themselves by promising tax cuts, without regard for the social or economic health of the province, and they hold this up a fiscal responsibility.
The NDP hasn't shown much success economically, but they have also been saddled with the 5 worst years for Alberta since the early 80s, and comparing them economically the Stelmach or Redford governments is no contest at this point. Two of the governments let a run away resource economy carry the day while failing to prepare for the inevitable downturn that comes with that type of economy, the third faced with that very downturn attempted to spend there way out of it in a Keynsian fashion and the juries still out.
I think it is possible to believe in the hybrid system of open capitalism with a strong social welfare state that defined the western world from the 30s through to the 90s. I would be the first to admit that game theory and a race to the bottom makes impossible for a jurisdiction as small as Alberta to single handily create a strong social economy. But this does not mean we have to assume the people who are willing to explicitly pander to subsection of the populations economic interests, are by default the best economic stewards.
So can we stop ceding the ground.