"Aye, free! Free as a tethered ass!" —W.S. Gilbert
"All the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and . . . the State should be abolished." —Benjamin Tucker
"You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." —James Madison
"Fat chance." —Sheldon Richman
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Intentions versus Results
We can argue about a given politician's intentions from now until doomsday. What must not be forgotten is that without sound social-economic theory good intentions count for zilch. We know what the road to hell is paved with.
You should have mentioned Thomas Sowell's book, "A Conflict of Visions" (1988) for the explanation of the process that mistaken people follow, making a decision with a bad result, due to "good intentions." He describes those people as "Unconstrained Vision" and it is simply not "constrained" by reality, i.e. economic analysis nor long-term planning. Thomas Sowell points out those "Unstrained" visionaries are not able to see nor understand the combination of "no intentions" and "good results," which is what Adam Smith wrote the entire book, "Wealth of Nations," to explain. Without "good" intentions - to help people - a merchant nevertheless brings bread and wine to your family's table. Even if he were "bad" (wanting a profit), it would help your family. But those "unconstrained" visionaries are just wishful thinkers, and in wish-fulfillment-land, you just have to tink happy thoughts.
I just realized there is no "edit" function for a posted comment in this software. I rely on that for correcting typo and spelling errors. I hope you can add that feature.
You should have mentioned Thomas Sowell's book, "A Conflict of Visions" (1988) for the explanation of the process that mistaken people follow, making a decision with a bad result, due to "good intentions." He describes those people as "Unconstrained Vision" and it is simply not "constrained" by reality, i.e. economic analysis nor long-term planning.
ReplyDeleteThomas Sowell points out those "Unstrained" visionaries are not able to see nor understand the combination of "no intentions" and "good results," which is what Adam Smith wrote the entire book, "Wealth of Nations," to explain. Without "good" intentions - to help people - a merchant nevertheless brings bread and wine to your family's table. Even if he were "bad" (wanting a profit), it would help your family.
But those "unconstrained" visionaries are just wishful thinkers, and in wish-fulfillment-land, you just have to tink happy thoughts.
I just realized there is no "edit" function for a posted comment in this software. I rely on that for correcting typo and spelling errors. I hope you can add that feature.
ReplyDelete