The trouble with doing.......................

 

.................economics properly and wisely:

It’s tempting to do economics as if an omniscient and omni-benevolent god were able and willing to hire itself out as the faithful agent to follow the mortal’s policy recommendations. Imagining oneself tapping into god-like knowledge and power is heady, and from that high perch the real-world, with all of its messiness and imperfections, does indeed appear to be in dire need of divine intervention. But economics properly and wisely done . . . takes human nature, including humans’ limited cognitive abilities, as given. Most of the so-called “theoretical exceptions” to the economic case for free trade are relevant only in an alternative reality in which governance of humans’ daily economic and political affairs could actually be turned over to a god or to a mortal transformed into a god.

-Don Boudreaux, from this post