“…the historically important central puzzle of economics was
to explain how independently acting people in an unplanned decentralized,
private ownership economic system allocate their resources and, in particular,
to explain how it is that the uses they seem to make of resources seem to be
well coordinated”. - Harold Demsetz (1)
Independently acting people in the unplanned aggregate economic
environment coordinate well. Man-made systems do not coordinate well in a vast and aggregate economic environment. (2)
Imagine if
one is faced with having to “unwind” man-made political systems masquerading as economic
systems in Europe. Europe being a vast economic environment. The unwind becomes a crisis for many as the man-made politico
systems, the larger and more complex they are, breed larger and more complex
negatives that public choice theory explains. (3)
Robert Higgs at the Independent Institute has made the
assertion that legislation leading to regulation “ratchets up”. That is, little
is ever repealed, merely more is added on. Hence we have a corpus of regulation
that can never erode, only expand. A zero floor of erosion in corpus with all
new gains in regulation becoming part of the corpus – rarely or never to erode. (4)
Imagine being on the ground in Europe and trying to ratchet back/unwind all the man-made politico silliness and during every step of the way encountering Marie, Thomas, and Peter living off of, and depending upon, the zero floor of erosion of corpus that sustains his/her income in one form or another.
Notes:
(1) From Economic Man to Economic System, Harold Demsetz
http://www.amazon.com/From-Economic-Man-System-Institutions/dp/1107640857
(2) F.A. Hayek, from the essay The Pretense of Knowledge
(3) James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy, 1958
(4) Dr. Robert Higgs, http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=489
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