Since the very beginning of ordered government, rulers and their administrators have endeavored to control their economies. The conviction that there is a fair price for a certain good, and that it ought to be imposed by government decree, is a foolishness nearly all rulers are incapable of resisting.
For the past forty centuries (or more), governments from every corner of the world have tried to fix wages and prices. When their plans flop, as they almost always do, officials rarely blame the inherent flaws of their policies. Instead, they point fingers at the greed of businesses and citizens.
To this day, governments and academics can’t shake their obsession with economic planning. With little reprieve, a group of people appear with every generation who think they can centrally manage the whole economy.
They eventually find out the hard way – after a lot of painful, failed experiments – that it simply doesn’t work. But because human nature never changes, the same old ideas are rehashed, perhaps with a shiny new name, and the cycle is repeated.
How else can one explain the election of Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, to mayor of New York City? Continue reading
