{"id":3183,"date":"2012-10-24T11:28:24","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T18:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/2012\/10\/24\/educated-fools\/"},"modified":"2013-10-17T11:04:32","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T18:04:32","slug":"educated-fools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/2012\/10\/educated-fools\/","title":{"rendered":"educated fools"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Hayek, more than anyone else, illuminated the knowledge problem.\u00a0 Simply put: No one person can ever know enough.\u00a0 Planners who think they can process all of the data from disparate sources across vast expanses of geography and culture are, quite simply, educated fools.\u00a0 The planners of the New Deal had convinced themselves that they were smart enough to grind out any problem so long as they had enough data.\u00a0 Worse, in their contempt for the “disorganized” character of capitalism, they were deeply hostile to markets and the informational power of prices.\u00a0 When prices went in the wrong direction the New Dealers took it upon themselves to out think the market.\u00a0 Hence the great pig slaughter of September 1933, when the government ordered the killing of six million pigs in a time of deprivation.”Jonah Goldberg, The Tyranny Of Clich\u00e9s<\/em>, 2012.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The aggregate opportunity cost of planning since the New Deal — the economic value of what has been foregone in service of the planning myth net of actual economic benefit — we’ll never know.\u00a0 My guess is it’s a staggering number, moreover, in return for this loss, planning benefits have unjustly accrued to non-stakeholders on a largely random basis.<\/p>\n

Planning is a game with winners and losers, and a playing field controlled by unvested planners.\u00a0 What could go wrong?<\/p>\n

B_Imperial<\/p>\n