The Risks of Improvement

Samuelson wrote "We have only one history of capitalism. Inferences based on a sample of one must never be accorded sure-thing interpretations."

This is a statement with a lot of implications. What we have in this nation now is an accidental economic system, the product of a number of forces converging in history. Like those wonderful and creative science fiction/alternative sociological stories, this economy is one of many possibilities. But America's driving force is not Adam Smith, it is loosely fettered freedom where Adam Smith found root. There are lots of other possible systems; after a bad couple of decades should we change the framework? The Pacific Basin has a number of controlled economies with a capitalistic flavor. These Pacific nations emphasize national growth; freedom and capitalism are tools, valuable only as long as they work. There is no principle involved. It is all practicality. Should we try one of them?

There is a wonderful restlessness in man, an eagerness to do something new, to improve. The problem is what to do and, more important, who to put in charge to do it. The men who founded this country--really who revolutionized their times--were highly principled and fearful of the potential abuse of power. Is there anyone in the current political corral who has even one of those two characteristics? Is there anyone you would trust to restructure the nation?

What is the enemy of good? Better.