The essay finishes with a plea to “fostering of new institutions that will, in turn, nurture economics thinkers who dare to acknowledge the merits of markets.” I’d be interested in Shlaes’s view, two years after her piece, about how we are doing toady. A sort of anti-hero is Herbert Hoover (“Hoover thoroughly intimidated business and markets, blaming them for hogging too much of the money”) and an even bigger anti-hero is Lyndon Johnson, who simply “assumed growth”, thinking that free enterprise would produce its marvels whatever the incentives. He reversed the quite inauspicious beginning of the 1920s through tax cuts which worked as they are supposed to, according to the supply-side playbook. Her hero, to whom she devoted a splendid biography, is Calvin Coolidge, Coolidge is described in the article as a staunch fighter for economic freedom, who put “markets first,” understanding their power in creating prosperity.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |