Eric Maskin Quotes
The market doesn't work very well when it comes to public goods.
Maskin, Eric S. "Science AMA Series: I am Eric Maskin, Professor of Economics at Harvard and co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics, here to talk about Mechanism Design. AMA!" Reddit, 19 Jun. 2014.
The “folks” were private corporations want to run schools and have won some contracts to operate Charter Schools. They argue that the free market should prevail when it comes to education and schools should not necessarily be run by local governments. Corporations should be given a chance in a “free market.” However, as Molnar observes, there is more than a little hypocrisy in the these educational corporations totally depend on public, tax dollars for the existence. Ironically, there is a sound market for elite private schools which are in a free market which are funded with private money. However, these educational corporations have chosen NOT to compete in this private arena. They only want public money. Critics argue that they are not very good at operating schools but are quite skilled at politically obtaining taxpayer money. So far there is no data from objective studies which shows that these educational corporations can operate better or less expensive schools.
Some economic conservatives see little or no role for government. For many of them, in a free market there is no role for government. This quotation, from one of the economic heroes of the conservatives, shows that he not only saw a role for government, but believed that government was essential to the operation of a free market.
This rigid view left no room for regulation which is what almost every modern industrial democracy has chosen. To some of his extremist followers, any government regulation of business or the economy whatsoever, regardless of how little, means that the nation has embraced socialism. It is in this sense that many extreme right wingers viewed Presidents like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama as socialists while they saw themselves as opponents of socialism.
The prime minister had a political and philosophical position that government should not interfere with or set or control pricing in the economy. However, a scandal broke out involving payday lending—short term lending the working class does to tide them over till pay day if they run out of money. Lenders were charging huge interest rates beyond anything that is conscionable. Cameron’s government placed controls on interest rates and other facets of that industry as they might have lost a vote of confidence in Parliament had they not acted. He was then questioned about the hypocrisy involved in his regulation, and he gave this amazing quotation, which was the classic reason for government price controls on the private sector that had been given by the Labor Party opponents for years. This also distressed extreme conservatives, who argue that market controls are always preferable to government controls.
Owner of one of the only 2 Mexican Television Networks. Pemex is the only oil company in the world, government or private, that loses money.
Eric Stark Maskin is an American economist and 2007 Nobel laureate recognized with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory". He is currently Adams University Professor and Professor of Economics and Mathematics at Harvard University.
