In his column today, Thomas Sowell discusses the importance of “experience” for government officials and finds it greatly exaggerated.
He’s talking about foreign policy, but I’d make it general. It is quite possible (in fact common) for politicians to have plenty of “experience” in policy matters and yet believe things that are patently untrue (such as that you don’t increase unemployment when you mandate higher labor costs) and make decisions that are harmful.
In most things in life, experience is a good teacher because you learn from your mistakes. But in politics, mistakes usually have bad consequences for other people.
