Markets, Not Economists, Will Help the Economy

George Will:

Whatever else historians will say about Washington's response to today's crisis, they are not apt to say the government did too little. It certainly has not suffered the fate of Buridan's ass, the animal in a philosophic puzzle who, placed equidistant from two piles of hay, starved to death from indecision. Some Washingtonians can remember when the federal government first had a budget of $100 billion (1962); this year's decisiveness might contribute to a deficit next year of $1 trillion.

In his wise book "Capitalism, Democracy & Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery," John Mueller, an Ohio State political scientist, notes that John Maynard Keynes' central theme, according to his biographer Robert Skidelsky, was that "the state is wise and the market is stupid." Mueller continues: "Working from that sort of perspective, India's top economists for a generation supported policies of regulation and central control that failed abysmally -- leading one of them to lament recently, 'India's misfortune was to have brilliant economists.'"

Many of them were educated in Britain, by Keynes' followers. In America today, everyone agrees that the president-elect's economic team is composed of brilliant economists.

Lets hope these economists stand humble before the levers of power.