… is from page 153 of Thomas Sowell’s January 23rd, 2007, National Review essay titled “The ‘Greed’ Fallacy” as this essay is reprinted in Sowell’s 2010 collection, Dismantling America:
One of the reasons why central planning sounds so good, but has failed so badly that even socialist and Communist governments finally abandoned the idea by the end of the 20th century, is that nobody knows enough to second guess everybody else.
DBx: Yes. And the only difference in the United States separating full-on socialism from the socialism-lite that goes by the sweet name “industrial policy” is that the government officials in charge of industrial policy aren’t given the power to second guess hundreds of millions of people investing and spending their own money; these officials, under industrial policy, have the power to second guess only tens of millions of people investing and spending their own money.
Pointing out that donkeys are unable to flap their legs and fly a distance of five miles does not imply that donkeys should then be presumed to be able to flap their legs and fly a distance of one mile. These animals can’t fly, period, regardless of the distances demanded. And government officials cannot outdo the market at allocating resource, regardless of the portion of the economy that industrial policyists demand be put under the control of government officials.
