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… is from pages 98-99 of University of Notre Dame philosopher James Otteson’s excellent and hot-off-the-Cambridge-University-Press book, Seven Deadly Economic Sins (2021) [2]:
[T]he “Great Mind Fallacy,” or GMF … has two aspects. Its first is to believe that there is some person or group of people who possess enough information, and is endowed with sufficiently superior character, that we can safely entrust with the authority of crafting policy for citizens. Its second aspect is to endorse public policy that could succeed only if such people were in charge of administering the agencies and mechanisms required to effectuate the beneficial results we hope from them.
DBx: To that assume any such mind and character exists is indeed to assume the existence of that which isn’t, never was, and will never be. But hordes of people arrogantly fancy themselves to possess such a mind and character, and hordes of other people fall for the alluring promises of these obnoxious pretenders.
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