The government's role in economic matters should remain limited despite the siren calls of pundits, politicians, and some economists who favor alternative models, argues economist Michael Boskin in a new Hoover Essay in Public Policy.
In Capitalism and Its Discontents: The Adam Smith Address, Boskin analyzes criteria comparing the limited government capitalist model to communist central planning, market socialism, welfare states, and extensive government micromanagement. He points out that a limited government capitalist economy has always proven superior when compared to the alternative models, each of which has imploded under the weight of its own failures.
At this time, when the economy is strong, it is crucial for economists to uphold the advantages of keeping the government's role in the economy to a minimum, Boskin states.
Michael Boskin is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Tully M. Friedman Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He served as chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers from 1989 to 1993, and chaired the highly influential blue ribbon congressional commission on the Consumer Price Index from 1995-1997. Boskin earned his B.A. with highest honors in 1967 from the University of California at Berkeley, where he also received his M.A. in 1968 and his Ph.D. in 1971.
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