One and a Half Cheers for Free Markets; One and a Half Cheers for Government

In an insightful piece cleverly titled "Two Cheers for Capitalism" (NY Times, Friday, July 31, 2015), David Brooks identifies the emerging left/right debate: the former moving beyond re-distribution and enhanced social services to a deeper critique of the inequality and irrationality of unchecked capitalism while the later remains enamored of the vitality of market freedom and the deadening effect of state control. Locating myself just to the left of Brooks and dead center on the political spectrum, I give one and a half cheers for both the free market and the state: both have vitality and purpose; both are inclined to disfunction. Both have become too large and complicated; both are cancerous in their over-growth; both need to be viewed with a delicate balance of confidence and skepticism.