In these days we often hear the words economic crisis, inflation, skyrocketing prices, supply shortages, war economy etc. All of the aforementioned words are negative effects of failed financial policies (which might also be a word we hear quite often), but because the media is mostly superficial, the vast majority of people don’t know or have an uncompleted understanding of what economic policies are. To put it simply, at first, the way in which an administrative region/country/economic block (such as the European Union) is run from an economical point of view is purely theoretical. There are multiple theories which differ from each other and these theories are called economic doctrines. The body which is administrating has to choose which economic doctrine they want to implement. When the theory (the economic doctrine) is decided upon, it is then put into practice, thus it becomes an economic policy.
Another point which I must make is that politics and economics are intertwined. You can’t implement a political idea if you don’t take the economic aspect into consideration and every economic doctrine is driven by a political idea, thus it is imperative to understand both if you want to have solid political opinions. This is why in the following articles I will use political ideas and references to describe the economic policies which I will present, yet the articles and ideas will still be very economic in nature.
It is important to also talk about a unit of measurement for the many economic doctrines that exist. (There are already 3 separate ideas that don’t make much sense if put together, but bear with me, I promise everything will make sense soon). This tool is called the political compass and now I will briefly what that is. The political compass is a visual representation of political ideologies based on two axes: economic (left-right) and social (authoritarian-libertarian). The aforementioned instrument helps to categorize individuals or groups by their stance on economic policies (redistribution, regulation) and social issues (personal freedoms, authority). It provides a broad framework for understanding political diversity and positions.
By now a question might arise in the mind of the reader that being: „Ok, but what is the point of all that you said (it is very reasonably to think so)?” Well dear reader, with the help of Phase Learning and the wonderful tool that the political compass is, I will try to present the main economic policies and doctrines which exist currently (with a few fun or very interesting additions) and describe them to you in an accessible and not overcomplicated way. I will try to be as unbiased as possible (I have to admit that it is impossible to be fully unbiased since politics will be involved, but I will try my best to be as unbiased as possible) and back everything up with factual and concrete examples, but also give every time more than one perspective. Since this is a publication of economics, I must also point out that the economic aspect of the political compass will definitely be in the centre of attention and the political one will only be mentioned when needed.
To summarise everything up, if everything goes well, this will be the beginning of a series of articles which will present economic ideologies and how to analyse them. In the next article I will present the Political compass way more in-depth than today and also introduce the economic policies which I will analyse. If this sparked your interest, I will see you in two weeks with the aforementioned article, esteemed reader.
Comentarios