Rules for economy make no more sense than rules for poker
By Steve Stephens
Columbus Dispatch, January 25, 1999
Imagine trying to write an ironclad formula for winning poker.
Even the greenest player has heard the adage: "Never draw to an inside straight.''
But an experienced player knows that "never'' almost never means "never.''
The nearly infinite possible combinations of cards, pot odds and personalities require a player to constantly adapt by re-examining his tactics in light of new information.
There is no one best way to play.
Now imagine a Federal Poker Administration, dedicated to the noble proposition of improved play, of reducing gambling losses, of turning winners into losers.
Helpful rules of thumb would become rules of law, no longer flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances or new information.
"Never draw to an inside straight'' would be enforced by FPA officials who would conduct surprise inspections of poker games.
Bluffing would be prohibited (except before the grand jury). And poker -- stripped of unpredictability, of the profit motive, of fun -- would die a slow death.
The idea of a Federal Poker Administration would seem ludicrous, even to the likes of Al Gore and Pat Buchanan. Why then, are bureaucracies such as the Department of Commerce and theFederal Trade Commission taken seriously?
Why do so many politicians and bureaucrats think the economy is more manageable than a 52-card deck?
I've always pictured the future as a wonderful place where there is more good and less misery, more fun and less drudgery, more plenty and less want.
But the specifics are always changing. Ten years ago, who could have predicted the Internet, Beanie Babies or fat-free potato chips? Certainly not Trent Lott.
I hope the future will be a place where people are free to create, innovate, succeed -- and fail -- and thus continue the progress that has been a hallmark of the free market.
The future I've always expected has enemies, though. Reason magazine editor Virginia Postrel, who was in town last week, has identified them in a book called The Future and Its Enemies.
Postrel spoke at a Statehouse luncheon sponsored by the free-market Buckeye Institute for Policy Studies, the day after Bill Clinton's State of the Union address. If only Postrel could draw as big an audience as Clinton.
The old political divisions of liberal and conservative no longer apply, Postrel said. Instead, she divides the world into stasists and dynamists.
Stasists want to return to an idealized past that never existed or to advance only upon a carefully planned, hazard-free route.
Stasists fear the uncertainty of competing ideas, of the marketplace, of a future they cannot control. Stasists believe the future must be diverted into a narrow, defined channel through laws, regulations and decrees.
Stasists, of course, include most politicians and bureaucrats.
"They're at war with creativity, enterprise and progress,'' Postrel said.
Dynamists, on the other hand, trust in the creative energy of millions or billions of individuals.
Dynamists believe progress and human betterment are best achieved by allowing people to use their own knowledge, ideas and desires, constrained by only a basic framework of simple rules.
Dynamists believe in a future of messy, incremental, never-ending progress -- a prospect that scares the stasists silly.
Stasists see an unplanned, dynamic future as a crapshoot -- pure gamble, a sucker's bet. They want to glue the dice to the table.
Dynamists know such a future would be more like a poker game -- a proposition of calculated risks and rewards, but with an ever-expanding pot that turns most players into long-term winners.
Steve Stephens is a Dispatch Metro columnist. He can be reached at 614- 461-5201 or at sstephen@dispatch.com
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