… is from page 217 of Deirdre McCloskey’s and Alberto Mingardi’s superb 2020 book, The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State:
But the economy is not a car or boat: there is no helm, there is no wheel to steer it. Benevolent people at the “helm” are not enough to take a better direction, though bad or ignorant people messing with it can take it in a disastrous direction. The economy is more complex than anything a single set of benevolent human beings can steer, if we want to keep the economy rich and the society free. And non-benevolent people, of which sadly there is no shortage at any price, are very willing to use emergencies to seize riches and to crush liberty.