… is from page 170 of Arnold Kling’s superb 2016 book, Specialization and Trade: A Re-introduction to Economics:
If there are visionaries who see that certain innovations in energy will prove sustainable, then they are not precluded from risking their own funds and persuading others to risk funds on such investments.
DBx: A good rule-of-thumb – a rule that should almost never be violated – is this one: Ignore anyone who proposes a course of action that forces others to bear costs, yet who refuses himself or herself to take a substantial personal financial stake in that course of action. Or more generally, as Mencken observed, “The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.”
It’s far easier to be a ‘visionary’ with the money and lives of other people than it is to be a visionary with your own money and life.
