When businessmen in the 1960s asked for special treatment for their industries, which they claimed were crucial to the colony’s well-being, Sir John Cowperthwaite replied that “I should have thought that a desirable industry was, almost by definition, one which could establish itself and thrive without special assistance in ordinary market conditions.”
“I believe government should not presume to tell any businessman or industrialist what he should or should not do, far less what he may or may not do—and no matter how it may be dressed up, that is what planning is.”
“In the long run, the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralized decisions of a government, and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster. . . Over a wide field of our economy it is still the better course to rely on the 19th century’s ‘hidden hand’ than to thrust clumsy bureaucratic fingers into its sensitive mechanism.”
THE CHAMPION OF HONG KONG’ S FREEDOM.
A talk given to the Civil Society, University of Santa Clara, January 2005
By Christian Wignall
http://www.capstanglobal.com/id12.html
~Matt
-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2011 iWolff Ltd.
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