Success at Business Does Not Imply Knowledge of Economics
15th February 2016
Don Boudreaux, a Real Economist, reminds the Low Information Voter of some inconvenient truth.
Knowing how to run a business is not the same thing as knowing economics. To assume that the two domains of knowledge and expertise are the same is an error equivalent to assuming that a successful NASCAR driver is thereby an expert automotive engineer. Of course, it’s possible for a successful NASCAR driver to know something about automotive engineering, just as it’s possible for a successful business person to know something about economics. But success at each of the former tasks (driving a race car and managing a business) is not the same thing as, and requires very little familiarity with, the latter domains of knowledge (automotive engineering and economics).
Unfortunately, a successful business owner will have a good gut-level appreciation of certain economic principles, such as supply and demand, that deludes him into thinking that he knows more about ‘economics’ than he really does.