Checking The Structure

The LA Times reviews Michael Shermer's book The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales From Evolutionary Economics. I haven't read the book, though I do know it's about evolutionary psychology and how it plays out in today's world. (Guess that's obvious from the title.)

I know Shermer--not very well--and have read other books of his. I have no idea if this one is any good, but I can tell the review isn't. It starts with a chip on its shoulder. How dare Shermer use science to back the free market!

I admit there are plenty of shaky, allegedly scientific arguments out there about our psychology, but was it really a good idea to let Lee Drutman review this book? He wrote The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy--Shermer never had a chance.

To give you a feeling for Drutman's view, look at this frightening parenthetical statement: "the modern invention of market capitalism has almost collapsed multiple times and would have but for repeated interventions by governments."

Pardon me? Could you point to a specific case? I don't deny government is involved in the market. Even libertarians admit the need to have a force that resolves disputes and upholds contracts, and governments have gone a lot further than that, but when did they save the entire market system? They've saved companies, of course, but if they didn't, at worst it would have meant the company collapsed and others took up the slack (that's a good example of evolution at work). Then there was that panic in 1929 where the government intervened and helped turn it into a decade-long depression, so surely Drutman isn't referring to that.

I'm not denying there's been huge intervention by governments into market systems throughout the modern era--I just wasn't aware that's what saved the capitalist structure.