07/03/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 07/03/2024 04:13
Among the most useful questions to have ready at hand is "What if?" Unable to see the future - for the future isn't yet created - we nevertheless are wise to try to carefully anticipate it so that we can prepare for it as best as possible. An especially important mental tool for doing so is to frequently ask "What if?"
Asking "what if" is a healthy habit, but only if it's done judiciously. And to judiciously ask "what if" requires, in each situation, also asking "But also what if?"
We can never be certain that the choices we make will prove to be the best ones. But we can be certain that we'll make an unusually large number of bad choices if we never ask both "What if?" and "But also what if?"
At the personal level, this lesson, although true, is rather trite. In going about our personal affairs we naturally, and without thinking about it, ask "What if?" and "But also what if?" Yet in the arena of public policy, while "What if" is often asked, this first question is too seldom followed by "But also what if?"
Protectionists, for example, are forever asking "What if we don't protect this industry from foreign competition? We might find ourselves without access to critical war materiel!" As such, asking this question is appropriate. What's not appropriate is failing to ask follow-up "But also what if?" questions. Such failure, however, is commonplace.
Appropriate "But also what if" questions in this case include these:
Protectionists also eagerly ask "What if we today fail to protect Industry Y and then discover tomorrow that, thriving abroad, that industry is a major source of excellent employment? But protectionists never follow up this question by asking "But also what if, in protecting industry Y, we deny resources to industry Z that would have turned out to be a source of even greater excellent employment in the future?"
The failure to ask "But also what if?" questions is rife also among antitrust enthusiasts. Seeing the thriving today of a large, successful firm - CurrentlyDominant, Inc. - often invites the question "What if no one can ever compete against CurrentlyDominant, Inc. with enough vigor to keep prices in that industry low and product quality high?" Everyone who asks this question is someone who obviously doesn't possess the entrepreneurial creativity to devise a means of successfully competing tomorrow for customers who are today best served by CurrentlyDominant, Inc. But, of course, all it takes is one such creative person.
There are 340 million people now living in the United States and eight billion on earth. The chances are nearly 100 percent - and history backs this claim - that CurrentlyDominant, Inc.'s high profits and large market share today will tomorrow incite at least one of these many people to devise a successful entrepreneurial response that ensures that CurrentlyDominant, Inc. does not for long, if ever, exercise monopoly power against the interests of consumers. The fact that college professors, government bureaucrats, and politicians cannot themselves conceive how competition might be successfully leveled in the market against CurrentlyDominant, Inc. testifies only to the reality that such people aren't entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, their inability to imagine entrepreneurial, competitive possibilities is mistaken to be evidence that CurrentlyDominant, Inc. should be attacked with antitrust rather than allowed to flourish and to be disciplined only by creative market rivals.
The arrogance of those who wish to unleash the dogs of antitrust on CurrentlyDominant, Inc. prevents them from asking important follow-up questions, including:
Again, asking such questions does not guarantee that correct answers will be forthcoming. Errors will be made. But the chances of getting matters wrong - the likelihood of maximizing mistakes - are much higher if, after asking "What if?" we fail to ask "But also what if?"
Donald J. Boudreaux is a Associate Senior Research Fellow with the American Institute for Economic Research and affiliated with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; a Mercatus Center Board Member; and a professor of economics and former economics-department chair at George Mason University. He is the author of the books The Essential Hayek, Globalization, Hypocrites and Half-Wits, and his articles appear in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, US News & World Report as well as numerous scholarly journals. He writes a blog called Cafe Hayek and a regular column on economics for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Boudreaux earned a PhD in economics from Auburn University and a law degree from the University of Virginia.