Think of three points on an ideological triangle:
1. Point L, where you believe that markets are effective at processing information and solving problems. This position is to take a radically pro-market view, and to let markets fix their own failures.
2. Point C, where you believe that tradition incorporates the evolved use of information to solve problems. This position is to be very cautious about overthrowing existing institutional arrangements.
3. Point P, where you believe that expert technocrats should be in charge. You are comfortable with throwing out tradition and markets in order to cede power to experts.
I’ll apply this framework to some people and to some issues.Tyler Cowen is a mix of L and C. He is too C to go along completely with the brute logic of Robin Hanson or the bumptious enthusiasm of Bryan Caplan. But Barack Obama has managed to offend Tyler on both the L and C points, as you can see in the latter part of this interview with Matt Welch. I also find myself somewhere between L and C.
Brad DeLong and others on the left of center in the economics profession are examples of point P. They seem to have no doubts that expert technocrats can outperform markets in every situation. In fact, the entire mainstream economics profession is built around point P. When you write a paper, if you don’t include a section on “policy implications” (i.e, how a benevolent technocrat would use the findings in your paper), the paper is considered incomplete.
Take the issue of health care. The left is sure that markets fail and that technocratic government is the solution. Thus, we have the proposal for IMAC, an independent set of technocrats to run the health care system.
I am in an awkward position on health care. My L side wants to abolish health insurance as we know it, and replace it with out-of-pocket spending and some yet-to-emerge form of catastrophic insurance. See my book. However, my C side recognizes that both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the industrial world, third-party payments for medical services are extremely popular. Getting from where we are now to where I would like to go is a challenge.
Or take the issue of the Fed. For a true L, free banking is the best approach. For a true P, a strong independent Fed is best. For a C, we tend to take the Fed as given and the question becomes how best to see it governed and operated.
Finally, take the issue of competitive government. For a P, there is no reason to have such a thing. Concentrated political power is no problem–just make sure that you have the right benevolent technocrats in power. For an L, radical solutions are the answer. Charter cities. Seasteading. Let a thousand nations bloom.
As an L who is also a C, I am skeptical of these radical solutions. Existing cities and communities have evolved considerable institutional wisdom. Although it is difficult to fight entrenched political power, I suspect it is easier to make existing governments more competitive than to launch entire new communities. But I certainly have nothing against the latter approach.
READER COMMENTS
Curt
Aug 5 2009 at 9:30am
Where on this triangle would you locate Hayek? Somewhere on the line between L & C, I assume. Yet he seems to satisfy both descriptions.
SBA
Aug 5 2009 at 9:58am
Always good to see that Libertarians and Conservatives mischaracterizing the Progressive position. I hope that one day there is a world where the right side of the aisle chooses to actually address the left rather than their own made up fantasies of the left.
Bryan Pick
Aug 5 2009 at 10:02am
SBA – It would be more helpful if you would write down what you believe to be the proper characterization of the Progressive position.
Constant
Aug 5 2009 at 10:25am
SBA – are you saying that progressives and leftists are not technocrats? Maybe so, but technocrats are technocrats, there are a lot of them, and as Mr. Kling points out, the entire mainstream economics profession is built around their belief. This is an extreme corruption of the science of economics.
Crayfish
Aug 5 2009 at 10:55am
You lump together too many different things that have their own frictions/transaction costs and collective action problems. It is easy to be a strict libertarian (in my dreams) or a strict authoritarian (platonic). But not when you are responsible for a going concern. Grownups know what to use and when.
John Lynch
Aug 5 2009 at 10:58am
I had the same question as Curt. It seems very odd to me to use the label “Conservative” to describe the ideas of a man who wrote an essay entitled “Why I am not a Conservative.”
Personally, I do not see the difference between the L and C positions not being whether one accepts “the evolved use of information” and “existing institutional arrangements” or not. The difference to me is that the L position tends to want to prevent the erection of barriers to further evolution while the C position wants to put the brakes on and preserve what we have. Both positions favor the use of current institutions and evolved knowledge, but one doesn’t see the need to afford them protection from further evolution and the other does.
Eric H
Aug 5 2009 at 11:51am
I’m fighting my way from C to L, and reading Arnold’s So You Want to Be a Masonomist has really made that struggle easier.
The one quibble I have is with the idea that markets can fix their own failures. I don’t think markets can fail; they can produce outcomes people don’t like, but ultimately they cannot fail because markets do not have goals or minds or the capability of action. Individual people can fail to meet their own goals. Social arrangements such as corporations and governments can fail to meet their criteria of success, which is determined by the individuals that make up those governments and corporations.
Markets don’t fail, they only produce outcomes we don’t like, outcomes that are at variance with individual conceptions of the good. In other words, it takes a technocrat to identify a “market failure.” It takes someone who presumes to possess both the correct idea of the good and all factual information about the circumstances in which the market was operating when it failed. I don’t think this is possible.
SydB
Aug 5 2009 at 12:33pm
Mr Kling:
Your description of progressivess is self-serving. Why put up straw-men that you can then easily knock down?
Better this:
3. Point P, where you believe that tradition often oppressed individuals and groups, or carries with it erroneous ways through lack of insight that can be rectified or possibly set on a positive path through public policy or regulation.
You create positive descriptions of libertarian and conservatives, then juxtapose them against a mocking description of progressives. Believers will eat it up but I’m not impressed.
Rimfax
Aug 5 2009 at 12:42pm
One key that seems to separate L from C and P is that C and P rely on controlled assimilation of change using fixed frameworks, while L allows for the discovery of new frameworks. For C and P, new problems must be solved against a static concept of culture or economics. For L, new problems may fragment and change the concepts of culture and economics, for better and for worse from traditional and utilitarian perspectives.
Blackadder
Aug 5 2009 at 1:00pm
Markets don’t fail, they only produce outcomes we don’t like, outcomes that are at variance with individual conceptions of the good.
Strictly speaking a market failure is not where markets fail so much as where you fail to have a complete market. So, for example, adverse selection is only possible where you have incomplete information, externalities are only possible where property rights are incomplete, etc.
blighter
Aug 5 2009 at 1:01pm
SydB is hysterical!
You’ve basically written why, as Arnold put it, “you believe that expert technocrats should be in charge” and “are comfortable with throwing out tradition and markets in order to cede power to experts” and are upset that he put the outcomes of your “why” simply and concisely without putting in your explanation.
Here’s your progressive definition: “You believe that tradition often oppressed individuals and groups, or carries with it erroneous ways through lack of insight that can be rectified or possibly set on a positive path through public policy or regulation.”
Great, so tradition is oppressive. You don’t discuss why markets would also be oppressive to individuals and groups, but we’ll assume that’s what you were trying to get at with “erroneous ways”.
And you believe that public policy or regulation can provide solutions.
Who will write that public policy and regulation? Clearly not everyone together, b/c if they were capable of sorting things out to your satisfaction, they’d presumably just go ahead and stop “oppressing individuals and groups” all on their own. We might call this sort of self-organization of everyone a “market” or some such. And the organizations that evolve out of everyone just sorting things out would tend to get codified in “tradition”, but since we’ve already thrown those out for “lack of insight” and “erroneous ways”, that can’t be it.
Presumably the people constructing this enlightened “public policy and regulation” that will correct these manifold oppressions are people who have the “insight” the people making up the market and contributing to tradition lack. One word for people especially blessed with knowledge in a particular area is “expert”. When those experts are in the government endeavoring to use their expertise to correct “erroneous ways” and such, they are termed “technocrats”.
So your critique basically boils down to “Progressives don’t believe expert technocrats know better! They just believe that the market and tradition oppress individuals and groups and that technocratic experts could produce public policy and regulation that would be better if they had the power to overrule markets and throw out tradition!”
Which is exactly what Arnold said the progressive postition was except that you added the “why” piece and let the “who” that Arnold put in go unmentioned.
But somehow stating your position clearly and forthrightly without the “but I believe this b/c I want to help people!” part sounded perjorative to you. Maybe you should think about why it is that your own professed political philosophy sounds evil to you when its unspoken assumptions are said aloud.
Arnold Kling
Aug 5 2009 at 1:10pm
Aw, gee, I am sorry I described L, C, and P in terms of how each type thinks social problems should be addressed. That is such a “straw man” view of progressives.
What progressives are all about is that unlike L’s and C’s who are cruel and mean, P’s are really good people who really care.
There, does that provide a description that the P’s can relate to?
manuelg
Aug 5 2009 at 1:10pm
Kling:
> [Progressives] … believe that expert technocrats should be in charge. You are comfortable with throwing out tradition and markets in order to cede power to experts.
Shame on fellow Progressives who chafe against this description. It accurately describes the promise and the risk of progressivism. As a Progressive I *must* be comfortable having technocrats making decisions for all of society, and, if my vision is clear, I recognize the possible/probable failure modes of such an approach. As there are possible/probable failure modes for the other two.
The three approaches, or a mixture, are means to an end, not an end to itself. A self-aware stakeholder would choose a different position on the triad situationally.
The higher the personal stakes, the more likely I will pick a blended approach. If my personal stakes are low, or I am stressed into an incapable state, the more likely I will fall back into a “pure” position that reinforces a soothing self-image. I would guess other people behave the same.
Cheers to Kling.
SydB
Aug 5 2009 at 1:23pm
“They seem to have no doubts that expert technocrats can outperform markets in every situation. ”
Total straw man against Delong. Extremist language. “no doubts” and “every” are common examples of strawmen in the making.
Also note the extremist language: technocrats should be in charge. Of what? Everything? The color of toothpaste?
Again, a strawman.
Language and arguments such as the above feed the base but they serve no other purpose in the larger dialog that should help find a balance between libertarian, conservative, and progressive approaches to society.
And just as a note: I’m a big fan of building codes. Also a fan of nuclear regulatory “technocrats.” The grasping at straw in the above discussion does not allow provide an intelligent reasoned means to determine when and where regulation is appropriate. That is why I continue to be unimpressed.
Eric H
Aug 5 2009 at 1:56pm
SydB–
You mean you’d let the market determine the color of toothpaste? You’re out of your mind!
Talk about technocratic:
“The grasping at straw in the above discussion does not allow provide an intelligent reasoned means to determine when and where regulation is appropriate. That is why I continue to be unimpressed.”
“Does not allow provide an intelligent reasoned means…” To who? To you? It seems like you’re trying to impose your standards where no imposition is needed. I hope Arnold, David & Bryan are aware they need to structure their language to impress you!
Alex J.
Aug 5 2009 at 2:02pm
Almost everyone is in favor of a “mixed economy” composed of some government and some markets. Using Arnold’s terminology, a C wants about as much government as we have now, an L wants less, while a P wants more.
Mark
Aug 5 2009 at 2:05pm
SydB
“Also note the extremist language: technocrats should be in charge. Of what? Everything? The color of toothpaste?”
Extremist? Of What? It could be the color of toothpaste, they have already chosen what kind of light bulbs, cars, mosquito repellant, etc., we should use, perhaps they could also recommend a good brand of dental floss as well.
rpl
Aug 5 2009 at 2:09pm
SydB, do you not think “extremist language” is appropriate when describing points of view that are expressly offered as ideological extremes? If real progressives do not conform to Arnold’s “Point P”, perhaps it is not because they, like most people, do not sit precisely on the vertices of Arnold’s category scheme, but rather somewhere in the interior.
Furthermore, I have to echo blighter in observing that when it comes to describing how progressives want to structure society, your own description doesn’t seem much different from Arnold’s. It appears as if most of your problem with Arnold’s definition seems to stem from his not explaining progressives’ noble motives for wanting to structure society the way they do. But he doesn’t include motives for the L and C positions either.
I am comfortable with the claim that L-types would “take a radically pro-market view” (I consider myself a mostly-L with lesser degrees of P and C), despite the pejorative overtones of “radical”. Why are you so worked up over the claim that you “believe that expert technocrats should be in charge”? That is, in fact, what you believe, isn’t it?
SydB
Aug 5 2009 at 2:48pm
In Mr Kling’s analysis, L’s are associated with freedom and the power of markets, C’s with wisdom, and P’s are totalitarian. That’s the starting point for his discussion.
My argument: Why analyze further? He’s already done so through his definitions. The outcome is already decided. But he goes on to use his definition of P to dump on Delong and those left of center. His main intent seems to be as follows: define L and C as ideological extremes that are good–free and wise–and P as an ideological extreme that is bad–totalitarian.
As someone who takes a conservative, libertarian, and progressive view–the world is a complex place–I find it unproductive to label progressives as totalitarians.
Lines must be drawn to solve problems–lines that may fall on the progressive, libertarian, or conservative side. Mr Kling–in this post–makes difficult any constructive dialog on where that line will be drawn–because it’s obvious in his mind that the progressives are totalitarians. It would be nice to see more nuanced discussions that are actually useful in helping us to decide when we need building codes or nuclear regulation–and when the market can decide the color of toothpaste.
Niccolo
Aug 5 2009 at 3:25pm
I don’t know if you really fall on the line of C if you just recognize that L is really, really unlikely.
I take that position, but I don’t even want to think about calling myself a conservative.
ed
Aug 5 2009 at 4:11pm
In fairness to SydB,
Few if any “progressives” want technocrats to be in charge of *everything.* Most also place some value on freedom of choice, particularly in such areas as sexual and reproductive freedom, for example.
What I don’t understand is what framework progressives use for deciding what things should be under the control of technocrats and what things should be left to individual choice. Can any progressives help me out? SydB?
El Presidente
Aug 5 2009 at 4:17pm
Arnold,
I am not particularly attached to the label “progressive”, but I would assume you would place me in that camp based on my profession, my philosophy, and my previous comments on this blog. If not, then we’ll need to devise a square, because I am certainly not an L or a C. Wouldn’t you say?
I think your analysis falls short. In fact, I’m certain of it. That’s what technocrats (presumably me) are good at: continuous analysis, critique, and revision. In that regard, you are a technocrat as well, though you do not claim it . . . anymore. The meaningful distinction is not between those who wish to refine continuously and those who could care less or have no objective. We all have objectives, they just don’t always overlap. The distinction is not between those who would like some basic assurances and those who would like to walk the tightrope without a net. None of us seek risk for it’s own sake. Even risk-takers seek risk for some sort of resulting reward (adrenaline, profit, affection). No, the distinction is rather of circumstance and of degree. Even a libertarian suggests that it is good for society to have sufficient physical protection, be that military, mercenary, or militia. Even a conservative is open to free-market reforms (e.g. required disclosures rather than forbidden behaviors). Even a progressive sees value in individual choice (e.g. family planning) as a method of enhancing individual happiness. We are not enemies . . . at least I am not yours.
A progressive, if that is what I am, doesn’t ignore expertise and doesn’t shy away from employing it. Thus, a progressive needs to be thorough in evaluating, assessing, and applying what they believe to be expertise. They must be more concerned with the effects of their actions, not less. They must be conscientious. I don’t know why that should be so disdained. If they don’t apply rigor to themselves as well, they are, in a word, jerks. That is not what I desire to be. However, I will not be cowed into resignation when we know with the certainty of mathematics and observed patterns of human behavior that the conduct of individuals toward one another can be influenced by changing incentives. One would have to be completely devoid of moral sense, even a sense of IN-justice, or entirely resigned to their own inability to improve outcomes for others, to suggest that there is no appropriate role for collective action. If they fall into both of these categories, they are likely sociopaths. I don’t think you or anybody else who has commented here is a sociopath. I’m willing to give you all the benefit of the doubt and I humbly request the same. We can quibble about the form it takes, the institutions that administer it, the outcomes we would prefer. But quibbling about whether or not there is any useful purpose for collective action that is associated with sovereignty is waaaaaay off the deep end, in my opinion. I think you would agree since you call yourself a civil societarian. The quarrel then is primarily wheter we combine collective action with the use of force, and whether we divorce private action from the use of force. Secondarily, it is of scale and scope. These present a very meaningful philosophical debate you do not even attempt to address here.
We do ourselves and each other no favors by pretending that we can divorce morality and remarry quantifiable output without feeling and causing great pain for the rest of our natural existence. I don’t think you pretend this, but you might want to clarify. It is no more a perversion of economics than a perversion of physics, chemistry, literature, or art to seek to employ any of them for the benefit of humans. Economics cannot teach us what is right, but it can inspire us and aid us in identifying what is wrong. Then we can all cry about it or we can work on it. Maybe we need to do both in that order; I dunno. Economics is more than a language. It is a discipline.
I think you severly mischaracterized DeLong. I’m not his buddy, and I have disagreements of my own with his conclusions, but he never said that government should decide everything any more than you said that government should decide nothing. You write:
“They seem to have no doubts that expert technocrats can outperform markets in every situation.”
Not at all. This is a false dichotomy to a progressive or technocrat or whatever you would call me or DeLong. We are fully aware that markets are replete with expert technocrats. We don’t pretend that one needs a G-number, or a certain ID card, or a credit union account to be a technocrat. Do you?
And after thoroughly mischaracterizing the people you labeled progressives, this is just childish:
“Aw, gee, I am sorry I described L, C, and P in terms of how each type thinks social problems should be addressed. That is such a “straw man” view of progressives.
What progressives are all about is that unlike L’s and C’s who are cruel and mean, P’s are really good people who really care.
There, does that provide a description that the P’s can relate to?
I don’t suppose Lauren edits YOUR comments.
Ned Baker
Aug 5 2009 at 5:05pm
I second SydB and El Presidente:
This type of thinking is not useful for free thinkers, only for pleasing idealogues.
Bryan Pick
Aug 5 2009 at 7:37pm
El Presidente –
Arnold didn’t mention camps. He referred to points on an ideological triangle and immediately mentioned someone who fell between two of those points rather than firmly in one of the corners.
So a relatively Progressive individual who favored leaving some things to the individual would be partly down the line toward L. A relatively Conservative individual whose caution about overturning existing arrangements is relaxed enough that he advocates some reforms might move toward P or L, depending on whether it’s a technocratic or market reform.
So, where’s the straw man?
El Presidente
Aug 5 2009 at 8:31pm
Bryan Pick,
The straw man is in the false dichotomy between technocrats and private sector actors, and in the insistence that people like Brad DeLong are solidly progressive (as Arnold defined it). It’s not just a straw man, it’s BS.
lukas
Aug 5 2009 at 8:57pm
Well, El Presidente, isn’t the market, to “people like Brad DeLong” (and yourself, I presume), a mere tool to be wielded by experts who know where, when and how (not) to apply it?
43890435
Aug 5 2009 at 9:09pm
@El Presidente:
The difference between you and me is simply that you believe that experts can outperform the market. I believe that the ‘economy’ (I hate that noun) is simply too complex to be modeled with a linear equation of a few variables.
Of course, I don’t think that the private sector can do any better – they face the same problems. But the key advantage the private sector has is replication. If Verizon makes bad choices, maybe ATT and T-mobile won’t. If Intel predicts wrong, maybe AMD won’t. Plus, blunders tend to be smaller scale when compared to a US Congress that is willing to throw 10 trillion around.
El Presidente
Aug 6 2009 at 1:35am
lukas,
Well, El Presidente, isn’t the market, to “people like Brad DeLong” (and yourself, I presume), a mere tool to be wielded by experts who know where, when and how (not) to apply it?
Nope. That’s not my impression of Brad, and it isn’t my sentiment.
43890435,
The difference between you and me is simply that you believe that experts can outperform the market. I believe that the ‘economy’ (I hate that noun) is simply too complex to be modeled with a linear equation of a few variables.
That might be the difference between you and somebody else, but I don’t accept your characterization of me and I don’t know how you might have come to it.
But the key advantage the private sector has is replication.
How many municipal governments are there in the continental United States? How many counties and parishes? How many commonwealths and states? To focus on the one point in government where it is consolidated to an overarching, single, albeit very multifaceted entity is somewhat misleading. If you’ve ever surveyed policies across jurisdictions, you know there is considerable policy diversity within the singular national economy. The key advantage the private sector has is that it actively seeks profit and aligns the rest of its activities to support that effort. The key advantage of the public sector is that it is empowered to seek other ends (not necessarily mutually exclusive ones) and to use other means (not necessarily counterproductive ones).
Patri Friedman
Aug 6 2009 at 1:45am
This comment section could have been so interesting, instead it turned into tribal poo flinging. Always a potential downside of categorizing ideas, I guess.
Anyway, the one comment I found interesting was by Rimfax:
“One key that seems to separate L from C and P is that C and P rely on controlled assimilation of change using fixed frameworks, while L allows for the discovery of new frameworks. For C and P, new problems must be solved against a static concept of culture or economics. For L, new problems may fragment and change the concepts of culture and economics, for better and for worse from traditional and utilitarian perspectives.”
For C, I certainly agree with you. But I think P involves pretty radical changes in culture and economics. The New Deal was P. The Communist Revolutions were P. P stands for radical change in a certain direction, not a static background.
I do agree with your characterization of L, and that is why C without L is doomed to stasis. There is much evolved wisdom, it is dangerous to change too much too deep too fast. But…we need change, or we’ll never make progress.
The “American Experiment” of 1776 was L, not C. And I’m glad it happened. Hong Kong seems rather more L than C.
From my perspective as a libertarian, when you depart from C in the L direction, you get Hong Kong, when you depart in the P direction, you get the Kmer Rouge. So it’s pretty clear to me which way we should be going.
But even if we forget that, and just say that departing from tradition is high variance, that still makes it enormously valuable. What we need is a structure where we can depart from tradition in a variety of ways in a variety of small societies, and everyone else (with their C hats on) can cautiously see how it works before deciding whether to adopt it. Keep the risk off-balance sheet :).
lukas
Aug 6 2009 at 9:08am
I think it would be dishonest not to acknowledge there there was a lot of P in there, too, especially among the federalist crowd. Many common folk didn’t care one way or the other about the Experiment and had to be propagandized or forced by their betters (rich, male WASPs) into supporting it.
Even the name, “Experiment”, hints at the P motivation of this change.
What, then, is the proper role of the market in society, according to progressives?
Tom Myers
Aug 6 2009 at 9:32am
I really liked this post, as a helpful way of thinking about my own views, but I do agree that it mischaracterizes DeLong and other progressives in saying that they’re actually at point P. I would really like to see an updated version of the post, possibly replacing “They seem to have no doubts that expert technocrats can outperform markets in every situation” with a series of restatements, converging on something that works better…maybe the next version could be “They seem to have no doubts that expert technocrats can safely improve markets in every situation where markets show imperfection”. In other words, I think the current version is pretty clearly false, but carries a fairly important insight that needs and deserves work.
El Presidente
Aug 6 2009 at 11:20am
lukas,
What, then, is the proper role of the market in society, according to progressives?
The ‘market’ is akin to a force of nature, an untamed ocean if you will. We wouldn’t ask, “What is the role of the ocean?” No, we take it as a given and we instead ask, “How can we best use the ocean?”. Government creates harbors and ports, breakwaters, inlets, etc, so that the raw force of markets can be used to better meet the needs of individuals and society as a whole. Without the ocean, a port is useless. It should not be the aim or practice of government to dry up the proverbial ocean, but the untamed ocean may be too unwieldy to interact with in an optimal way, especially for those who are vulnerable.
lukas
Aug 6 2009 at 12:36pm
El Presidente,
I just don’t see the big difference between your position and the one I described. What you seem to say, and correct me if I am wrong, is that “we” should, through the democratic process, appoint people to identify how markets may be used to meet “our” needs. It does not matter whether we call those people “government”, “experts”, or “technocrats”: In this vision, markets (voluntary interaction) are not the engine of social and economic progress, but a tool used by the wise men in government to bring about progress, and without those people taming, directing and regulating markets, they would be useless or positively harmful.
El Presidente
Aug 6 2009 at 1:57pm
lukas,
They are the engine, but not the steering wheel.
Economists are concerned with constrained optimization. Occasionally we discuss anarchy, but usually we prefer stable systems and we like to ask a few questions and try to reach a conclusion.
Questions:
1. what is the goal?
2. what are the constraints?
Conclusion:
X is the optimal solution.
The science of economics lies between the questions and the conclusion. The art of economics is not between the questions and the conclusion, it is in the questions themselves.
This is the nature of humanity: we observe, we deliberate, then we act. That goes far deeper than any notion of government, social contracts, progressivism, economics, or what have you. It is innate and it would not serve us to try to eviscerate it. It IS the engine whether it wears a government ID badge or not. We use these tools because we are human. We use them whether we are wise or foolish. I would prefer we were wise. Wouldn’t you?
Don’t give the technocrat the steering wheel, but be sure you bring him along for the ride.
George
Aug 6 2009 at 5:27pm
Don’t give the technocrat the steering wheel…
Maybe Mo Willems’s next book should be Don’t Let the Technocrat Drive the Bus. More seriously:
I would prefer we were wise.
What little wisdom I’ve accumulated consists mostly in knowing when not to intervene. By contrast, governments seem to be under pressure to constantly intervene, and a lot of that pressure comes from self-identified Progressives.
El Presidente
Aug 6 2009 at 8:09pm
George,
There is a deep part of me that agrees in a spiritual way with what you suggest. That is not to say we should allow an idling car to drive out of control, but rather to say that in the absence of our effort to control it (or perhaps regardless of our effort), somebody else does. I’m not talking about Smith’s invisible hand of the market. I am speaking in terms of theology. This is far, far beyond typical concepts of economics and public policy, but I wanted you to know that your sentiment is not alien to me. It is just reserved for those instances when I am at a loss for a way to help.
Lukas
Aug 7 2009 at 6:34pm
El Presidente,
the whole point of self-organization is that there is no steering wheel. You seem to think that we have to give the steering wheel to someone, so it should be someone we can control. There is no steering wheel unless created by government, and even then the engine doesn’t always obey those who would pretend they can steer it.
Comments are closed.