Answers without insight are the most common and effective ones. The idea that to alleviate social ills we must find the root causes is hubris. Hayek was right when he spoke of the reality of our limited understanding. He told us thus in his The Problem of Knowledge in Society: The reason for this is that the data from which the economic calculus starts are never for the whole society given to a single mind which could work out the implications and can never be so given. This does not mean that planning is in itself inefficient or that we cannot have any knowledge of causes. It simply means that we ought to be humbler on our quest for answers. Unscrambling the egg if history is not possible and we often impose great penalties on others in our quest for intractable answers. The WHY is not as important as the WHAT. What can we do now to incentivize positive outcomes? That is the question.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 21:13:00 +0000
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