Volume 29, Number 13 · August 12, 1982
What Hope for the Economy?
By Wassily Leontief
According to the rhetoric of the Reagan administration much of the machinery of government should be dismantled and its functions, ideally, be limited to those intended by the Founding Fathers to serve the needs of the simple, agricultural community. Public opinion is becoming increasingly skeptical of this view and most professional economists, except for a small but very vocal group of 'libertarians,' disagree with it. Even some of Reagan's own economists claim that our immensely complex and highly vulnerable modern economy can be managed only through skillful manipulation of several powerful instruments controlled by the federal government—tax rates, budget deficits and surpluses, and the interest rates and monetary supply controlled by the Federal Reserve. I doubt it.
Feature, 3699 words
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