EclectEcon

Back in the days when I thought I might be able to do some acting (how disillusioned we all can be sometimes), I read some plays by David Mamet. I didn't much like them, even though he was revered by many as a great playwright. But, WOW, look at what he has written recently about his transformation (h/t to Salim Mansur, but others have already blogged about this, too):

What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.

... I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.

When utopian schemes fail, we are left to choose from among the feasible alternatives. Within that choice set, once we rid ourselves of our pollyanna-isms, less gubmnt intervention looks pretty good.

I see Mamet mispelled "gubmnt".