Doug Henwood and Michael Perelman mockingly say: >> > Of course, we might ask Hayek what happens when the market makes a >> > disastrous mistake??? >> >> The market can't make mistakes. It represents the collective wisdom of >> millions of dispersed actors and is therefore smarter than any of us. >> Just ask Alan Greenspan about why house prices weren't in a bubble in >> 2005.
For fun, take your opponents seriously. Markets don't make mistakes. People make mistakes. A lot of mistakes. People acting in the market make mistakes. People acting in charitable organizations make mistakes. People acting in governments make mistakes. People in family and romantic relationships make mistakes. People. Since people are flawed mistake makers, the question becomes what institutional arrangements are best conducive to good decision-making by people and minimizing mistakes by people? What institutional arrangements best allow mistakes by people to be corrected by people? I think theory and history argue in favor of markets as opposed to the alternatives on the table. Neither I, nor Hayek, nor anybody I take seriously, believes markets inherently produce a Panglossian result. All that we believe is that markets produce better results than the alternatives. David Shemano _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
