Jeff Jacoby is understandably appalled that so many bad ideas continue, despite their long and unblemished records of destructiveness, to attract new adherents (“Why won’t zombie bad ideas stay buried?” Opinion, Oct. 1). Antisemitism, socialism, protectionism — these and other disastrous false gods do indeed seem to be immortal. It’s tempting for decent people to despair.
But resist the temptation. As my late colleague Bob Tollison frequently said, “We’re all part of the equilibrium” — which is an economist’s way of observing that the truthful words and good deeds of decent, informed people weigh in the balance against the fallacies peddled by indecent or poorly informed people. As bad as things might now be, they’d be much worse if knowledgeable individuals such as Jacoby were not regularly speaking out against these zombie delusions.
Donald J. Boudreaux
Fairfax, Va.
The writer is a professor of economics and the Martha and Nelson Getchell chair for the study of free market capitalism at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.