Cato Policy Forum: The Consumer Equation of Demand/Supply Revisited in Preparation for Independence

The thing about creating a situation of economic uncertainty as does Brexit present to  England, is it provides an opportunity to re-examine some basic notions about governmental functions.  At the recent Cato Policy Conference on what government can do to help its citizenry, the supportive role of government was cast in the consumer equation of demands of its citizenry to supplies of goods and services available for their usage.  The speaker was England's Liz Truss, who holds the office of Chief Secretary Treasurer, at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC on September 18, 2018.

She acknowledged that her country is committed to maintaining its socialized medicine as a rightful citizen demand.  They want their healthcare!  But she seemed to refrain from endorsing a demand of several large corporations who aver they are too big for government to let them fail.  Once an enumeration of the demands upon government are clearly set forth, it would seem, the government can then reach out to industry and business to promote goods and services its citizenry may want to avail themselves opportunity to use and enjoy.  That is, government acts also in the capacity of an enabler--one of several-- as the means for business growth.  In this capacity it must impose relatively few regulations upon beginning start-ups and established businesses such as those producing energy, whose products are so essential to industrial expansion.  Specifically, she argued for regulation reform to minimize the burdens placed upon business in particularly new areas of innovation and technological overtake.

As Brexit moves ahead toward its completion date next year, we should expect that the English government will reject avenues of financial support for enterprises and pet projects that lead nowhere but to more debt and mad favoritism at the cost of promoting less those which will benefit the citizenry the more.  One looming large project is to shore up the coastal lands from the threatening rising sea heights.     

Implicit in Truss' Position

There is a corollary to Liz' understanding:  no new direction nor endeavor should impede or disavow a country's commitment to meeting the demands of its people, when the demands are legitimate and bona fide.  That is to say, a government should not double-cross its citizenry to proceed in directions that would deceive its people so as to no longer support their demands to the level it has met in the past nor promised in the future.