This is a really important piece from @PhilAldrick. Basically, it turns out much of our picture of what was happening in the British economy in recent decades was wrong. Which has one huge implication (1/?) thetimes.co.uk/article/if-it-…
The new consensus is that growth depends on government. That the state making investment decisions and carrying out microsurgery on the economy is not only desirable but essential.
I’ve always been a naysayer on this. I do not trust the British government (in particular) to allocate capital wisely - to choose the sectors or industries or technologies to support according to some far sighted vision. (See utter disasters passim ad nausea.)
But the message of this piece is that it doesn’t matter - because even if the wise men in government are indeed all wise, they are often (usually?) working with data which is incomplete or inaccurate.
There’s nothing new in this. Hayek pointed out the impossibility of effective dirigisme decades ago. But it’s good to get a reminder.
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