Quotation of the Day…

Tweet

… is from pages 230-231 of Robert Higgs’s September 1986 Freeman essay, “To Deal With A Crisis: Governmental Program or Free Market?” as this essay is reprinted and slightly revised in the superb 2004 collection of some of Bob’s essays, Against Leviathan (footnote deleted, link added):

Emergency programs frequently do not work as intended. Governmental officials attempting to control the market discover that it is a moving target. As George Shultz and Kenneth Dam explain, “To every government action the private sector reacts or accommodates, and the government further reacts as the private economy ‘talks back’ to the government.” The government tries harder and harder to outwit the people subject to its controls. The people try harder and harder to anticipate what the controllers will do next. Although the process may result in a stand-off, it consumes ever more resources on both sides.