Disaster Capitalism Revisited

George Mason economist and author of The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies Bryan Caplan asks:

If the government had followed a laissez-faire policy for the last six months, and output, employment, housing, and financial markets stood exactly where they stand today, what fraction of people would conclude that "Events decisively prove that laissez-faire is a disaster"?  Can you honestly give any answer less than 90 percent?

Can you?

George Mason's Robin Hanson has a subtly different take:

Can you imagine any crisis where voters would expect a substantial reduction in government to be the best response? 

Hanson goes on to note that this may put paid to Naomi Klein: "If you can't, that says there is almost no prospect for a crisis-induced libertarian revolution."

More debunking of disaster capitalism here.