Responsibility, liberty and how big to think

Boyes reflections on the pace and scope of change is provocative and challenges the institutional school of North. This work argues that the process of change is evolutionary and emergent. As I think of this view I wonder to what extent change is path dependent, marginal and slow.

I suspect that Smith, Hayek and classical liberals would describe the emergent or spontaneous order as one that is of human action and not design. To the extent that spontaneous order thinking is useful it seems to me that human design, whether micro in design - tax systems, regulatory regimes, or other legislative regimes, or macro economic - pacing, scale and scope - run contrary to a liberal society based upon notions of justice. That is, justice as Smith and Hayek outline in emergent rules as opposed to the potential tyranny embedded in the legislative process.

Boyes has a well grounded concern that seems both valid and perplexing - the expanding scale and scope of the state in the form of government regulation (one small example, the California prohibition of toys in fast food meals) that results in a nanny state, the evolution of the welfare state in our country (from military pensions after the Civil War to the wide "safety net" of today, and the emergence and growth of the warfare state.

That said, these developments have been beyond the control of humans, that is they seem to be the result of human action not human design. Had FDR not been elected, would Herbert Hoover have governed a New Deal? Had the momentum established by Wilson set in motion a path dependence that, at the margin, could be shaped but not significantly redirected?

These are important questions that lead me back to Dan Klein's question - what is the responsibility of the economist who believes in liberty? Klein argues we should try to educate the everyman.

Interesting, and as a long time educator, the barriers to open minded, civil consideration of the free exchange of ideas seems to be at the heart of a teaching and learning process that might allow for a meaningful consideration of the costs and benefits of alternative decision making regimes.

Can these barriers be altered, reduced, or eliminated in a sweeping action? Or will change be Northian?