What useful function to they perform? Economics is a practical discipline, studying the allocation of resources by (semi) rational agents in the context of conflicting interests. On of the agents that will always exist is the government - it's fair to say few examples of anarchy have succeeding, for whatever reason (man's desire for power and to control, probably mostly).
The mere existence of that government will mean that there will be an incentive for some to lobby it to further their interests - creating laws, tariffs, imposing taxes, whatever it may be.
So, what is more useful: Libertarians, who spend their entire time talking about how corrupt, inefficient and a pure waste of space government is, or other economists who attempt to study the nature of the beast for what is it, and try to devise the best possible solution given that government will always exist and hence incentives to manipulate government will always be there?
Libertarians, who essentially just sit on the side bleating on about how terrible things are, or other economists who actually try and understand the nature of these interactions in order that they may, in the future, reduce the problems of crony capitalism? In response to what I think the latter group of economists do, libertarians would provide some pithy quote from Hayek about how because of information constraints, it is silly of us to think we can design things better. How lame is that? This essentially lumps libertarians in with folk like Creationists who try to get in the way of learning more about the world around us.
I think you know where I stand. I think this is the aspect of libertarians that irritates me most of all - their lack of a constructive alternative that could constitute a stable equilibrium.
No comments:
Post a Comment