TIME?s ?Curious Capitalist,? Justin Fox, offers us this gem in his latest column about libertarian Peter Schiff:
He believes that the crisis-fighting measures coming out of Washington are merely delaying the inevitable, debasing the dollar and loading future taxpayers with huge debts.
There is still demand for this kind of market-trashing talk.
Well, no, Schiff is not ?trashing? the market. He?s trashing harmful government intervention that prevents the market from working.
But Fox?s error should not surprise us, since he reveals later in the same column that he believes some elite group ? Government bureaucrats? Academics? Washington cocktail-party enthusiasts? ? must have the answer for the nation?s economic woes:
I happen to disagree with most of Schiff’s economic views. But there’s a thriving line of academic research showing that including divergent opinions and models of how the world works makes groups better at solving problems. Our society failed spectacularly this decade at solving the problem of how to price houses and mortgage bonds.
In Fox?s defense, his column asserts that people ought to give Schiff an opportunity to make his case. Still, the thrust of Fox?s argument suggests he?s more of a central planner than a capitalist.
