“As a profession, we have made a mess of things. It seems to me that this failure of economics to guide policy more successfully is closely connected with our general propensity to imitate as closely as possible the procedures of the brilliantly successful physical sciences, an attempt which in our field may lead to serious error…. If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire that full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible.”
Friedrich Hayek in his speech accepting the Nobel Prize in Economics, quoted in Brian Lee Crowley The Road to Equity
On Wednesday I discussed my National Post column on even conservative politicians thinking government is the answer to every problem with Scott Radley on 900 CHML Global News Radio.
In my latest National Post column I say this apparently ridiculous question needs serious attention because no politician anywhere seems to be able to think of anything the state cannot or should not do.
“Asked what the key thing is that poor countries should do, Cowperthwaite once remarked: ‘They should abolish the Office of National Statistics.’”
Alex Singleton’s obituary of former Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Cowperthwaite in Fraser Forum October 2006
In my latest Epoch Times column I warn that the Liberals are taking appalling risks in charging forward with hugely ambitious new projects from a crumbling economic and fiscal position.