Assume The Worst About People And You

History Is On The Side Of The Regulators.

Equality Of Opportunity Is Not Enough. Unless We Create An Environment Where Everyone Is Guaranteed Some Minimum Capabilities Through Some Guarantee Of Minimum Income, Education, And Healthcare, We Cannot Say That We Have Fair Competition. When Some People Have To Run A 100 Metre Race With Sandbags On Their Legs, The Fact That No One Is Allowed To Have A Head Start Does Not Make The Race Fair. Equality Of Opportunity Is Absolutely Necessary But Not Sufficient In Building A Genuinely Fair And Efficient Society.

Gore Vidal, The American Writer, Once Described The American Economic System As 'free Enterprise For The Poor And Socialism For The Rich'. Macroeconomic Policy On The Global Scale Is A Bit Like That. It Is Keynesianism For The Rich Countries And Monetarism For The Poor.

Between The Great Depression And The 1970s, Private Business Was Viewed With Suspicion Even In Most Capitalist Economies. Businesses Were, So The Story Goes, Seen As Anti-social Agents Whose Profit-seeking Needed To Be Restrained For Other, Supposedly Loftier, Goals, Such As Justice, Social Harmony, Protection Of The Weak And Even National Glory.

There Is No Such Thing As A Free Market.