The belief that many people (left and right) have in the ability of politicians to use their power to make society better is amazing. Yes, that view is cultivated in school, but you’d think that adults would see that it’s plain nonsense.
In this letter, Don Boudreaux responds to one of those foolish columns by E.J. Dionne in which he demonstrates that childish naivete regarding politicians. The line from Middlemarch is right on target:
Dear Editor:
No one can doubt the goodness of E.J. Dionne’s motives, but his unshakable faith that well-intentioned and intelligent politicians will make America better is adolescent. The naive confidence that he has in Barack Obama – as revealed in Mr. Dionne’s suggestion that the President “is smart enough to fix things” (“Ironies of ‘a Devout Non-Ideologue’,” April 27) – reminds me of a line from George Eliot’s Middlemarch: “You go against rottenness, and there is nothing more thoroughly rotten than making people believe that society can be cured by a political hocus-pocus.”*
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
