Wednesday, October 28, 2009

If Soros Wants to Toss Away His Money, Fine   [George Leef]

George Soros plans to spend a bundle to start a new institute devoted to crushing the "failed" ideas of the free-market camp. Read about it here.

The premises behind this are simply laughable. First, it isn't the case that most of the academic world embraces "free market fundamentalism" — a term that is itself ludicrous because every economist I know who thinks that markets do a whole lot better than coercive regulation by government officials holds that belief on the basis of reason, not faith. As Thomas Sowell said long ago, "I don't have faith in markets. I have evidence about markets."

Second, while there are some islands of strong free-market research and teaching to be found among American colleges and universities, more of the economics profession remains rooted in the (I think discredited) interventionist views of the Keynesians.

Finally, you have to be wilfully blind to say that the financial meltdown we've experienced is due to the failure of the free market. Government meddling in housing and credit was massive and distorting. That's your culprit.

10/28 09:25 AMShare