I don’t expect our political ‘leaders’ to have much understanding of economics, foreign affairs, or general science. However, I do from time to time indulge myself in the strange delusion that they have at least some very basic education and some very basic grasp of reality. And then comes along a dolt like Ontario’s Economic Development Minister Michael Bryant and disabuses me of my silly notions by saying something so outrageously barmy and inane, it hurts.
According to this plank,
"The state has got to be strategic and if that's the case, then we need to act as an entrepreneur and invest directly in businesses," Mr. Bryant told a luncheon crowd in Toronto. "This is government choosing winners and losers. This is supposed to be the thing that governments weren't supposed to do. But this is the business that we are in."
Read more on how Ontario is now in the business of 'reverse Reaganism', whatever that means.
Not that it matters what it means, since words seem to have lost all their meaning. There was a time and a place when the word entrepreneur meant something along the lines of “a person who has possession of an enterprise, or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome”. How does this apply to government? Since when is a government an enterprise? How is anybody in government significantly accountable for the inherent risks and the outcomes?
Mr. Bryant, next time before you open your silly gob, why don’t you do some basic research? I don’t expect you to read Kirzner’s brilliant little tract on the entrepreneur. You wouldn’t understand it anyway. For you, Wikipedia is probably demanding enough.
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