Duke behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely offers some interesting ideas in the latest Business Week about the impact of optimism on our economy.

Among his observations:

Imagine a society in which no one would take on the risk of creating startups, developing new medications, or opening new businesses. We know most new enterprises fail in the first few years. Yet they crop up all the time, sometimes jump-starting entirely new sectors. A society in which no one is overly optimistic and no one takes too much risk? Such a culture wouldn’t advance much.

What struck me about that passage was the fact that illiberal collectivist policies work in direct opposition to the conditions that generate optimism. If you know that society will ?take care of you? and that any risks you take are likely to lead to rewards for the tax man, why bother?