I'd be curious to know what Will thinks the consensus is among economists about the FRS. My sense is that a robust majority of professional economists believe it's a net structural improvement to the American economy. If that's right, I'm surprised that this post seems so concerned with the failure of (ostensibly) noneconomists to realize how much better off the economy would be without it.

I'd be curious to know what Will thinks the consensus is among economists about the FRS. My sense is that a robust majority of professional economists believe it's a net structural improvement to the American economy. If that's right, I'm surprised that this post seems so concerned with the failure of (ostensibly) noneconomists to realize how much better off the economy would be without it.

Will, I thought what was most interesting about Fukuyama's Trust was that it groped toward a way out of this stale see-saw.

Not that it's a perfect book, sure, but in it Fukuyama does perhaps use his Hegel to good effect: once there are enough of us – societal relations already exist – so that work can create surplus, we have entered the stage of recognition, where property can come into being. With property comes the concepts of rights and rationality.

Once we have property and rights, we can begin to trade. To trade more efficiently, we invent money. But the downside of these inventions is theft and injustice. To counter theft and maintain recognition, we create virtue, honesty and trust. To counter injustice, we create honor.

At this point, we still don't have “government” with its formal legal system per se. In Fukuyama's Hegelian account, the market structures work in civil society based on trust. High-trust societies have different structures than low-trust ones, and generate more of stuff we nowadays tend to think is good, and do it faster.

As we see in the current crisis, government can do all it wants, but until trust is restored, it's pointless. Trust is again affirmed to come before government intervention.

Thus as an escape from the polarized debate, perhaps we might run with Fukuyama for a moment. Maybe we should consider what about civil society has been broken/is deranged – and look to that to restore the necessary trust, and thus restart the market?

Or maybe I just need a drink. . .

Unless, of course, you're actually arguing for a steady state/closed loop economy–a state of affairs that would, arguably, be both an improvement and “apolitical”. But I'm thinking that's not what you're getting at.