3 ms·

I believe the Nobel laureate has the wrong title. It is not as if there's no market efficiency, no collective pricing that occurs from the interaction of indiv

I believe the Nobel laureate has the wrong title. It is not as if there's no market efficiency, no collective pricing that occurs from the interaction of individual agents. But individual, selfish agents do not always act in the public interest. Some economists call the problem of externalized costs "the Tragedy of the Commons." But a lot of commons aren't visible, which doesn't make for a great tragedy. So I (and some others) have taken to calling that problem "the Invisible Foot."

anamax 17y ago
> But individual, selfish agents do not always act in the public interest. That assumes that "the public interest" is well defined and knowable. It may be in a very small number of cases but, in general, when someone invokes "the public interest", they're trying to get you to go along with what they want, the "public" be damned. And no, it's not the frauds who do the most damage, it's the do-gooders, the true believers, by a large margin. The frauds can be bought off.