Neelie Kroes: why men are socialist, and women are libertarian. (vrijhaven)

In an article of the Dutch EU-commissioner for anti-trust Nellie Kroes, she tells us that is likes to have Angela Merkel, of the CDU, as the next kanzler for Germany. She finds that it would be a historic change in Germany and that it will contribute that more women will find their way tot the top of politics and business life.

Why does Neelie Kroes like to have more women on high places. She thinks that there are some peculiar differences in the way that men or women lead a country. Men try more to control everything. Men in high places want to let people see that they know everything and can shape society. Contrary to men, women acknowledge that nobody can know everything. They want more to stress communication.

Regardless the fact that this is the opinion of Kroes and that generalizations are often incorrect, it is possible to make a link with a great libertarian, F. Hayek.

In an essay of 1945 (The use of knowledge in society) Hayek argues that the failure of socialist planning is due to the fact that socialist do no want to acknowledge that the can not know everything what happens in society. Socialist think the a centralize government can organize government as she wishes. Strange enough they do not see that there is a lot of information which people have to deal with in society. For instance when a government takes a measure to cope with a problem, they do not see that it is very possible that this measure will cause, in combination with an unknown factor, other events or even new problems. Government do not see which incentives she gives to different kind of layers in society. I call this the disease of "ceterius paribus". When government meddle in society and implement a certain policy, the often forget that society is dynamic and there for when one problem is solved, the other layers of society start to work.

That is the point that Hayek want to make. Government has to be skeptic and to realize that she can not plan society or the economy. This is something that Elio di Rupo has to learn.

To come back to Neelie Kroes her argumentation: men are in that way a little bit socialist, because they want to control everything, contrary to women, who realize that the world is a complex structure that is not easy to control.

To conclude we have to say spite the fact that generalizations are often fallacious, (some)men can learn something of female intuition.