Lunch at the Labs

I enjoy listening to and learn a lot from the EconTalk podcasts hosted by the economist Russ Roberts. And it's fun to observe when his (economic) beliefs override reality.

In Kling on Prosperity, Poverty, and Economics 2.0 at about the 34 minute mark there is a discussion of the very interesting article in the New Yorker of December 14, 2009 by Atul Gawande:

Kling: What Gawande said is that the key to a better health care system is more trial and error on the part of government. And I just cringed when I saw that because I think government is the most ineffective trial and error mechanism out there. ... my jaw dropped when I read that.
Roberts: Yea, mine did too. He's an interesting guy but I thought it an unusual claim.

What is funny (or sad, depending on how one looks at it), is that a big part of Gawande's article was about how government run agriculture programs in the early 1900's successfully used trial and error to greatly improve agriculture in this country when the free markets could not. And the gist of the article was that government could do that again with health care.

This is a great example of cognitive dissonance: if one's belief in free markets is strong enough, then any example of government doing a better job is completely ignored.