A very nice piece by Declan McCullagh, especially strong on documenting how government completely failed at crisis management—after all the untold hundreds of billions spent after 9-11 for homeland preparedness blah blah.
One quibble here, which is endemic to literature that speaks only of Hayeken spontaneous order vs. intentionality, not the more precise formulation of markets intentions vs. government intentions. Murray Rothbard addressed this question:
“Suppose, for example, that the butcher and baker, out to maximize their profits, read free-market economics and see that maximizing profit also benefits their fellow-man and society as a whole. As they go about their business, they now intend the consequence of efficient satisfaction of consumer wants as well as their own monetary profit. So if, as some indicate, economic theory only studies unintended consequences of human action, does the learning of some economic theory by businessmen invalidate that theory because now these consequences are consciously intended by the participants on the market?”
