BALI — Claims that "unbridled capitalism" is behind the current credit crunch and financial turmoil are misleading and remarkably uninformed. This is usually accompanied by suggestions that "blind faith" in market self-regulation was a handmaiden in this mess. We are then told that the future must involve greater political management of capitalism.
It's as if adding one hollow assertion (unsupported by fact) upon another and then repeating them endlessly will somehow change reality. These assertions involve canards of epic proportions, because the reality is that politically imposed checks and balances are the status quo.
Indeed, managed capitalism has been the aim of most modern governments ranging from social democrats to national socialists as well as so-called liberal democracies. In most instances, constraints on markets were the result of self-serving populism used to boost electoral support.