Página 38 - Coordinación de Servicios de Información

A further force that holds economics to the classical orthodoxy, and
that will continue to do so, is the ... power of economic interests.
The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by sorne stil!
supposed , between capital and labor; it is between economic enter–
prise and the Sta te. Labor and labor unions are no longer the pri–
mary enemies of the business enterprise and of those who direct its
operations. The enemy (the wonderfully and dangerously reward–
ing role of military production apart), is government. lt is govern–
ment that reflects the concerns of a constituency that goes far be–
yond the workers: a constituency of the old, the urban and rural
poor, minorities, consumers, farmers, those who seek the protec–
tion of the environment, advocates of public action in such areas of
private default as housing, mass transportation and health care,
and those pressing the case for education and public services in
general. Sorne of the activites thus urged impair the authority or
autonomy of the pri vate enterprise; others replace private with
public operation; al!, in greate r or lesser measure, are at a cost ei–
ther to the private enterprise or to its participants. Thus the mod–
ern conflict between business and go vernment.
For the defense of pri vate ente rprise against the State the commit–
ment to the classical market is of vital importance.
If the market is broadly optimal in performance, the burden of proof
lies heavily on those who urge public intervention or public regu–
lation.
. . . avowedly conservative governments are in office in a number
of the larger industrial countries, and there has been an especially
strong revival of ma rket rhetoric since Reagan in the United States,
and Thatcher in Britain. This is both plausible and predictable. The
market rhetoric of present-day conservatism is firmly and very ef–
fectively grounded in economic interest, the economic commitment
to the classical market, its instruction and its broadly pervasive role
in the public consciousness, is strongly in the service of that inter–
est, and it has a theological qua lity that rises well aboye any need
for empirical proof. "
(de J.K. Galbraith, del libro con el mismo nombre)
36 English for Economists