… is from the late historian Forrest McDonald’s 1987 Foreword to Burton W. Folsom’s volume The Myth of the Robber Barons: in particular, this quotation is found on page x of the 5th edition (2007):
Political promotion of economic development is inherently futile, for it invariably rewards incompetence; if incompetence is rewarded, incompetence will be the product; and when incompetence is the product, politicians will insist that increased planning and increased regulation is the appropriate remedy.
DBx: Yep. And what a gig for politicians: Foul matters up with government intervention, blame these problems on the private sector, and then seize more power to further intervene for the ostensible purpose of ‘solving’ these problems.
