Solar energy, whether you like it or not, will be the future. As I have said before, the age of fossil fuels was a very short interlude in the history of humanity. Nuclear–fission now and perhaps in a few decades fusion–will have a significant share but for the long haul it will be solar.
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Day: August 2, 2008
Of Freedom, Markets, and the Future of India
Markets Work, Incentives Matter
The two broadest generalizations one arrives at from a study of economics are that markets work and that incentives matter. People respond to incentives because that is at the core of what it means to be rational. To the extent that humans are rational, their behavior is predictably in the direction that existing incentives point to. Trade between humans is rational because both parties in any voluntary trade benefit. The abstract mechanism which enables trade is called the market. Markets work in the sense that they maximize the gains from trade among an arbitrary number of entities. There are other methods of enforcing trade among people, such as the command and control mechanism often employed by communist governments. But they are at a distinct disadvantage relative to the market because the latter is based on the premise that rational actors respond to incentives.
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