Many, if not most, of the economic policies advocated by politicians today would never pass muster if the average voter understood as much economics as an economist like Alfred Marshall understood 100 years ago or David Ricardo 200 years ago.
Nothing is more basic in economics than prices — and yet the role of prices is repeatedly ignored or even misrepresented by politicians and the media.
...
Prices impose the most effective kind of rationing — self-rationing. Why is rationing necessary? Because what everybody wants always adds up to more than there is.
It doesn't matter whether you are talking about a capitalist economy, a socialist economy, a feudal economy or whatever. Resources are limited but desires are not. That is the basic and defining problem of economics.
- Priceless politics, Part II, Thomas Sowell
I can think of at least 94 people I'd like to have read this.
HT: McQ @ QandO.
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