Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 31 of my late colleague Gordon Tullock’s 2000 monograph, Exchanges and Contracts:

To repeat here a favorite saying of mine, an engineer knows from Carnot’s equations that no heat engine is perfect. Nevertheless he is able to choose between diesel and steam in designing a ship. He selects the one that for his particular use has the fewest defects. We should follow his model in choosing social structures. We should not be disturbed by the fact that we will not obtain a perfect solution. It is not given to us here below to reach perfection.