The always-perspicacious economics professor Walter Williams' latest column contains an excellent explanation of why it is impossible for anyone, no matter how brilliant, to micromanage an economy. What he says is something wise people know instinctively, but, nevertheless, it's worth a read. If nothing else, it may provide you with another way to explain the truth contained therein to others.
His piece is titled "Economic miracle" and starts out:
The idea that even the brightest person or group of bright people, much less the U.S. Congress, can wisely manage an economy has to be the height of arrogance and conceit. Why? It is impossible for anyone to possess the knowledge that would be necessary for such an undertaking. At the risk of boring you, let's go through a small example that proves such knowledge is impossible.
Imagine you are trying to understand a system consisting of six elements. That means there would be 30, or n(n-1), possible relationships between these elements. Now suppose each element can be characterized by being either on or off. That means the number of possible relationships among those elements grows to the number 2 raised to the 30th power; that's well over a billion possible relationships among those six elements.
Read the rest here.
Thank you Selwyn for this terrific article. I have the highest esteem for Walter Williams and his logic in this article is undeniable.
This poses the question to me: Are soft-hearted (and equally soft-headed) liberals truly altruistic in their veneer of compassion or have they simply exchanged their undeniable self-interest for the self-interest of the supposed victim class?
Posted by: Philip France | February 21, 2009 at 02:00 AM