This would be the
reversal of a trend dating back to Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in
the USA. It would also cast some fundamental - and way more ancient -
tenets of free-marketry in grave doubt.
Markets are perceived as self-organizing, self-assembling, exchanges of
information, goods, and services. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is the
sum of all the mechanisms whose interaction gives rise to the optimal
allocation of economic resources. The market's great advantages over
central planning are precisely its randomness and its lack of
self-awareness.
Market participants go about their egoistic business, trying to
maximize their utility, oblivious of the interests and action of all,
bar those they interact with directly. Somehow, out of the chaos and
clamor, a structure emerges of order and efficiency unmatched. Man is
incapable of intentionally producing better outcomes. Thus, any
intervention and interference are deemed to be detrimental to the
proper functioning of the economy.
It is a minor step from this idealized worldview back to the
Physiocrats, who preceded Adam Smith, and who propounded the doctrine
of "laissez faire, laissez passer" - the hands-off battle cry.
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