by Richard M. Ebeling
The American Institute for Economic Research
“If I Ruled the World,” say the lyrics in the hit song from the 1960s, the world would be a beautiful place with a smile on everyone’s face. Every man would say the world was his friend, with happiness that no man could end. No, my friend, not if I ruled the world. A nice fantasy for a daydreamer, but a dangerous plan in the hands of those presumptuous and arrogant enough to think that they could and should have the power to remake the world in which we all live.
We seem to be in the midst of a tidal wave of such dreamers who are dreaming of their ability to reconstruct and redirect the social and economic affairs of the rest of us. The coronavirus crisis with its accompanying government-made economic recession has served as the catalyst for even more such dreamers than usual.