Don't Lament the Inevitable; Change the Thinking

It's always amusing to read such things from an editorial board that has, among other things, advocated for centralization of the healthcare system:

One of its themes is how much government policy has been taken over by self-interested individuals who rotate between government and the private sector (including academic) jobs. They use government jobs as a way of ensuring even greater riches for themselves when they get out. Perhaps the most noteworthy are the "scholars" paid vast consulting and directorship sums to promote certain interests. In doing so, these academics become rich themselves.

Such "scholars" are supposed to be disinterested seekers after truth. In fact, all too many are just businesspeople in search of the fast buck, combined, of course, with the respect due to professors.

The Providence Journal can question the scholars' authenticity all it wants, but the distance between the financial-services individuals whom it attacks and those whose fortunes are based on the promotion of particular ideologies as academic research is not far. For that matter, wealth is not the only motivation for corrupted thinking on the campus.

More to the point, though, when a system relies on "experts" and "scholars" to set policies that, although ultimately filtered through a representative democracy, affect huge expanses of the economy and human life, the incentive will be inevitably strong to procure those labels and slap them on special interests. After all, who is more of an expert than the person who lives and breaths a topic?

This is a core flaw in all approaches to problem-solving via government, whether the area is finances, education, or healthcare.