Government Fails-So We Need More Government?

Jeffrey Sachs points out that the U.S. government is dysfunctional, while also arguing that this dysfunctional government needs to expand its control over the economy....

Of course, he would presumably says that an ideal government would do this and that which would be so great. But even accepting for the sake of the argument that this ideal government would be so great, this overlooks that you must base your analysis on how things are, not some fictional utopia.

Just like it is invalid for free market advocates to claim that markets always work perfectly (they clearly won't, even in the absence of government interventions) , it is invalid to advocate government action on the basis that the government will act in a perfect and hyper-rational way, when we know that in the real world, government structures and government employees act in a very imperfect way. Calling for more government action will therefore be for more of that dysfunctional and imperfect government action.