lies, damned lies, and ...
As a right-thinking man politically (blue collar, not blue blood) I support Worstall's preference for a free economy.
But as a techie with a physics degree, I claim his arguments are mistaken. Sure, there are 60 million or more individuals in the UK, but one group of a thousand individuals is very much like another such group. That is the science of statistics, which recognises what people have in common as opposed to what differences they have.
So a planned economy will be driven by statistics. For example, there are some 600,000 births per year in the UK. Of these, some 100,000 will have an IQ greater than 115 (i.e. above average by more than one standard deviation), and therefore ought to be receiving a grammar school education. If each grammar school admits about 100 pupils per year, as mine did, we need 1000 grammar schools. We currently have about 150.
This is the kind of issue where central planning can help It does not deal with 60 million individual cases but with a manageable number of statistics.
So, try again Tim!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
