For a quick lesson in economics and history, take a few minutes to watch this Learn Liberty video featuring Deirdre McCloskey, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago:

There are two key points to the video, particularly relevant to the Rhode Island discussion.

The first is that progressives are incorrect to credit the turn toward progressivism and big government programs of the past century for the increase in general prosperity, as some did at the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s debate last weekend..  The trend actually began around 1800, well before Social Security and the GI Bill.

The second is that neither exploitation of the masses by the elite nor top-down investment (whether Keynesian government-driven or free-market trickle down) is to credit.  Rather, increases in economic liberty for everybody plus social and monetary rewards for being an inventor, discoverer, or innovator brought about the unprecedented boom in prosperity.

That makes sense.  The economy, ultimately, is human activity, and human ingenuity is what brought new ideas, new systems for doing things, and previously unimagined products into being.  And human activity isn’t best spurred at the tip of a whip or at the call of a meager paycheck.  It’s encouraged by individual will and opportunity.

(Via Instapundit.)