Bart, from my various postings in Art Theime's "big government" thread, you know where I stand on this. I'm with you all the way. A truly "free" (completely unrestrained) market is just the law of the jungle applied to economics. Now, the law of the jungle does some good -- it is the driving force behind evolution -- but an awful lot of harm is done to individuals in the process. Since we don't want that kind of harm to be done (mass poverty, starvation, etc.), we have to impose some limits and controls on the free market. That's where government comes in.

Like the ancient Greeks, I believe that in our lives and institutions we should always strive for balance. Good governance involves balancing the public and private sectors against each other, finding the optimal level of participation by each that will serve the interests of the society as a whole. I'm not smart enough to always identify the perfect balance point between different forces in our society, but I'm pretty confident that we'll never find it by glorifying private industry and trashing government. We need both.

Yes, Kendall, I believe that was Nixon. Usually it was followed by some comment about "making this perfectly clear..."