Saturday, August 16, 2008

Neo-liberals (fans of unfettered markets) must see Hitler everywhere


The market is not so much a mechanism as it is a vast collection of interactions among self-interested players (the history of a market is the history of a ball to steal a line from Wellington).

Progressives (fans of regulated markets) blame the most undesirable outcomes of markets on players who behave according to pure self-interest – as opposed to at least a necessary and sufficient level of altruism. What describes the bribe taker, a slumlord, and the pickpocket? Neo-liberals (fans of unfettered markets) attribute the all-efficiency producing outcome of markets to purely selfish motives; ergo, neo-liberals must expect to expect to find pure Hitler outlooks everwhere.

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