First, I think this is a very useful and interesting question. It actually impacts decisions.
Second, I think the question itself is biased, in a sense. It asks which is more optimal for ensuring prosperity implicitly leading some to think this is the only possible criterion for choosing. However, the party that leads to more prosperity by many definition might also be the party that produces a poor underclass and a society which is, overall, significantly less happy or healthy on average. Might do, I’m saying, the point being that prosperity alone is not necessarily even the most intuitive figure of merit.
Indeed another very important figure of merit is societal survival. What profiteth it a political system if it raise the happiness but succumb to an external enemy? Nature is “red in tooth and claw,” this is not a value judgement, just a description of the survivors. There is no seriously large (i.e. successful) political system that isn’t pretty amazingly cynical about basic rights when protecting itself. It can be codified and above board (such as passing laws about which “coercive interrogation” is allowed and what the rules for “extraordinary rendition” are) or it can be hidden and lied about, but even seeming peacey countries have militaries and intelligence services and are not anxious to repeat any subjugation they might have experienced in world war I or II or some other conflict they did not do well in.
Having said all that, my considered opinion (sort of like a conclusion I guess) is that the policies of either major party in the US can be made to work for prosperity. That the more fundamental difference is values, primarily a belief in different amounts of government redistribution (both parties support redistributive policies). If you can accept a repressed underclass, you can get an efficient economy carried out by the overclass. If you want to mitigate the bottom, you can get an efficient economy carried out. The provable results of economics are more about what mechanisms work and less about what the ultimate goals of the produced prosperity are.
First, I think this is a very useful and interesting question. It actually impacts decisions.
Second, I think the question itself is biased, in a sense. It asks which is more optimal for ensuring prosperity implicitly leading some to think this is the only possible criterion for choosing. However, the party that leads to more prosperity by many definition might also be the party that produces a poor underclass and a society which is, overall, significantly less happy or healthy on average. Might do, I’m saying, the point being that prosperity alone is not necessarily even the most intuitive figure of merit.
Indeed another very important figure of merit is societal survival. What profiteth it a political system if it raise the happiness but succumb to an external enemy? Nature is “red in tooth and claw,” this is not a value judgement, just a description of the survivors. There is no seriously large (i.e. successful) political system that isn’t pretty amazingly cynical about basic rights when protecting itself. It can be codified and above board (such as passing laws about which “coercive interrogation” is allowed and what the rules for “extraordinary rendition” are) or it can be hidden and lied about, but even seeming peacey countries have militaries and intelligence services and are not anxious to repeat any subjugation they might have experienced in world war I or II or some other conflict they did not do well in.
Having said all that, my considered opinion (sort of like a conclusion I guess) is that the policies of either major party in the US can be made to work for prosperity. That the more fundamental difference is values, primarily a belief in different amounts of government redistribution (both parties support redistributive policies). If you can accept a repressed underclass, you can get an efficient economy carried out by the overclass. If you want to mitigate the bottom, you can get an efficient economy carried out. The provable results of economics are more about what mechanisms work and less about what the ultimate goals of the produced prosperity are.