The One-Handed Economist

One thing that’s always given me fits in life, one thing of many, is that so many people have a difficult time extending examples into processes by which they can solve other, similar problems. Sort of like that kid in your algebra class in junior high who, no matter what, couldn’t understand that solving 3x=10x+5 is exactly the same problem as 15x-4=2x+9: not in the sense that you get the same answer for x in both cases, you don’t (obviously), but you use exactly the same process to solve them. You’d be shocked how many people just can’t seem to do that. What’s more, most of the problems you will need to solve, ever, can be understood in terms of there analogies to things you already know how to deal with. On balance, that is. Simple, right? Easy enough in terms of the thought process, it’s the implementation that gets rather sticky in, for example, things like drug research.

Anyway, the point is, that it shouldn’t be all that difficult, most of the time, to understand when analogous processes are at work, or when situations are similar enough to warrant the same sorts of observations about their general properties. This leads me around to something I’ve noticed in the evolution/creation debate and in the debate about the general place of government in the economy, that is the planning/market debate.

What’s struck me, is that many people tend to be on opposite sides depending which topic is selected. The generally consistent tend to be moderates and libertarians who understand the basic facts: evolution is demonstrably true, and markets allocate resources better than top-down autocrats. Simple enough, and it seems like it shouldn’t be all that hard to grasp the connection.

For instance, Steve Verdon, Mark Thoma, and Don Luskin all think ID is stupid and all agree, generally, that markets are the appropriate way to allocate resources. Additionally, Don Boudreaux has a must-read piece on what can only be termed his outlook regarding different sorts of social theism. It’s interesting, engaging, and got me to thinking about a particular question.

Why is it that so many of those who are willing to accept that something so complex and diverse as the life on Earth came about as the result of an essentially random process cannot also accept that the modern economy can organize itself the same way? Why is the converse also often true? Neither position seems particularly consistent to me. Perhaps there will be further thoughts on this later.

UPDATE: Moved Forward To Reflect The Correct Date.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2005 at 7:52 pm and is filed under Nerdity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.