Any policy, good or bad, can be implemented badly by incompetent persons or those with bad intent. This is part of the basic dilemma of government. Has real capitalism ever been tried? Its opponents will say yes, its advocates no.
If people really wanted to give innovations a fair try, they would make it much easier for volunteers to perform experiments upon themselves (and only themselves). There are some real practical difficulties with this approach, but the most significant one seems to be that people are not interested in finding out the truth this way. It seems such a waste of time and effort since they “already know” what is best. Why wait for the ignorant skeptics to catch up? But it turns out that people tend to be overconfident that they know what the consequences of a policy will be, including all the “side effects.”
Rough evidence is found in the struggle to create charter cities (e.g. Prospera). China's Shenzhen economic zone at first seems to provide a counterexample, but a careful examination of its history reveals that its origin and to some degree its persistence has more to do with political expediency than the declaration and steadfast implementation of a central government policy. Dubai might provide an actual counterexample.
Any policy, good or bad, can be implemented badly by incompetent persons or those with bad intent. This is part of the basic dilemma of government. Has real capitalism ever been tried? Its opponents will say yes, its advocates no.
If people really wanted to give innovations a fair try, they would make it much easier for volunteers to perform experiments upon themselves (and only themselves). There are some real practical difficulties with this approach, but the most significant one seems to be that people are not interested in finding out the truth this way. It seems such a waste of time and effort since they “already know” what is best. Why wait for the ignorant skeptics to catch up? But it turns out that people tend to be overconfident that they know what the consequences of a policy will be, including all the “side effects.”
Rough evidence is found in the struggle to create charter cities (e.g. Prospera). China's Shenzhen economic zone at first seems to provide a counterexample, but a careful examination of its history reveals that its origin and to some degree its persistence has more to do with political expediency than the declaration and steadfast implementation of a central government policy. Dubai might provide an actual counterexample.