…which has been tasked on “restarting” the NH economy by “planning” how to “reopen” our economy.
George Will:
Markets produce many things secondarily, from shoes to trucks to novels, but primarily they produce information, in torrents that no government is intelligent enough to comprehend or nimble enough to respond to.
Sure, Government can infringe, hinder, or plain shut down an economy. That’s easy. Starting it up? Hard as heck and I am SURE that these politicians (and remember, all of the heads of these reporting Associations, Commissions, Boards, and other assorted Special Interest Groups are ALL primarily political entities) have no clue how complex our economy (even in our small state of NH) really is. No knock on them, but they can’t assimilate, synthesize, and organize all of the data points in order to NOT screw things up.
For just as soon as they get a handle on the data, it’s already old info. Even now, in this constrained version of our economy, consumers are still making purchasing decisions that just can’t be knowable. Prof Don Boudreaux adds a fuller explanation (emphasis mine):
And it’s worth pointing out again that economists have a coherent theory for explaining how markets elicit knowledge and distribute it to those who can use it most productively. In stark contrast, no one who proposes to replace or to override markets with taxes, tariffs, quotas, price controls, subsidies, or other state commands has any real theory whatsoever of how government officials will acquire and then use the knowledge necessary to bring about results superior to those that would otherwise be brought about by markets. The implicit ‘theory’ used by such people who advocate the replacement or overriding of markets is simply faith in government officials: faith that these officials will somehow know or learn enough to outperform markets.
When, for example, Oren Cass and Marco Rubio call for industrial policy to better ensure that we Americans specialize in producing outputs X and Y rather than A and B, they in fact have no way of knowing that their assertions that we would thereby be made better off are correct. Of course, these advocates of industrial policy will list benefits that they believe we would all enjoy if we adopt their schemes. But even if they are correct in these assertions of benefits, advocates of industrial policy have no way of knowing the costs of their schemes.
The deep point here is not that it’s impossible that (say) industrial-policy advocates are correct. It’s not impossible. Rather, the deep point is that advocates of industrial policy specifically, and of replacing or overriding markets generally, have no theory of how government officials will obtain the knowledge necessary for their schemes to succeed. All they have is faith and assertions based on their faith.
Yes, politicians and bureaucrats can GUESS but they cannot KNOW. The only folks that KNOW are the consumers that are acting on their own interests, needs, and wants and the producers that are trying to meet those demands. The data element that ties the two together is PRICE which is a constantly fluctuating entity; just visit your local gas station if you doubt me. Not only is its price set locally, but also county, State, nationally, and globally based on so many data points, we humans can’t absorb all the information needed to figure out why MY gas station is charging that price.
And this GOFFER Commission (and by proxy, Governor Sununu) thinks they can reasonably manage the economy of 1.32 million peoples’ marketplace decisions?
You’re absolutely daft and have a REALLY big inflated ego if you think you are the right person to do it.
I merely point out that far smarter people tried to “plan” economies before with the result being that Socialists everywhere are still saying “well, we didn’t have the right people in charge”.
Instead of this nonsense, just go and make a couple of HUGE purchases of N95 masks and gloves and make sure that the elderly, infirm, and sick can be taken care of without exposing them too much (IF that is what they want). I dare say that will be a cheaper cost than the harm that will be done by “planning” a reopen. Let US, we who make up the economy, make the decisions affecting us by ourselves.
After all, it used to be OUR money, right?
(H/T: Cafe Hayek)
