Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Well, okay, there is this

The chairman of the economics department at George Mason University in Virginia has one pretty good reason free-marketeers shouldn't commit suicide just yet:
5 November 2008

Editor, Washington Times

Dear Editor:

Re "Obama wins presidency" (November 5): to all persons who understand that freer markets bring greater prosperity, I offer a reason to applaud Obama's defeat of McCain.

A President McCain would have followed Bush's script: singing paeans to free markets while simultaneously meddling and spending in harmful ways. Nevertheless - with popular attention on the song rather than on the substance - the problems caused by these intrusions would have been blamed on "free market fundamentalism" or even laissez-faire capitalism. At least Pres. Obama's destructive policies will not unjustly give capitalism a bad name.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics

Score one for laissez-faire capitalism maybe not getting blamed for the next failure caused by government manipulation. By that reasoning, we can wonder what kind of financial market fix President John Kerry would have been able to get away with if he couldn't blame the problem on free markets.