There is a good essay by Hayek about this, The Use of Knowledge in Society.
PadishaEmperor on
That’s a typical argument among economists. But I think that the logic is kind of flawed, eventhough they might be right in the end.
Since we cannot do A/B tests for complex economical decisions we never know what action (or inaction) might have been more beneficial; I can easily agree with that. But that doesn’t tell us any direction.
It could just as well be the inaction of the state that caused the loss of jobs, the lack of technologies, the lack of new business… And in fact we have examples for that (just as we have examples for the opposite): one of the easiest and quite typical economic is failed regulation of externalities. The lack of a tax on carbon emissions will cause lots of harm.
ale_93113 on
The state is the one that creates universal education, polices our streets and makes it safer for businesses, redistributes wealth to the lower classes so that the consumer base is larger
You can have a state that limits prosperity or one that creates the conditions for prosperity to more easily occur
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The Law is a must read
There is a good essay by Hayek about this, The Use of Knowledge in Society.
That’s a typical argument among economists. But I think that the logic is kind of flawed, eventhough they might be right in the end.
Since we cannot do A/B tests for complex economical decisions we never know what action (or inaction) might have been more beneficial; I can easily agree with that. But that doesn’t tell us any direction.
It could just as well be the inaction of the state that caused the loss of jobs, the lack of technologies, the lack of new business… And in fact we have examples for that (just as we have examples for the opposite): one of the easiest and quite typical economic is failed regulation of externalities. The lack of a tax on carbon emissions will cause lots of harm.
The state is the one that creates universal education, polices our streets and makes it safer for businesses, redistributes wealth to the lower classes so that the consumer base is larger
You can have a state that limits prosperity or one that creates the conditions for prosperity to more easily occur