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… is from page 306 of the late University of Washington economist Paul Heyne [2]‘s 1995 article in Agenda titled “Teaching Introductory Economics,” as it’s reprinted in the 2008 collection of Heyne’s writings, “Are Economists Basically Immoral?” and Other Essays on Economics, Ethics, and Religion [3] (Geoffrey Brennan and A.M.C. Waterman, eds.):
The citizens of a democracy ought to understand how a commercial society (or a market economy) works, because such knowledge is a powerful antidote to many of the absurd policy proposals that special interests and thoughtless people press upon their governments.