3 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
JD Vance Responds to Matthew Hennessey on Markets and Politics
Matthew Hennessey offers readers a confused argument in his op-ed 'Vance Is Wrong: The Market Isn't a 'Tool'' (May 27). He seems to have taken umbrage at a dual characterization I made of the market in a recent interview. I described it as both an exceptionally efficient way of provisioning goods and services, as well as a tool available to lawmakers as they go about the work of governance. Most important, however, I argued that reducing barriers to free markets shouldn't be the ultimate aim of our politics. Instead, we should use them, and other tools, to improve the well-being of our people.
Mr. Hennessey disputes the idea that the market can be operationalized. He describes the market simply—as a sort of universal reality 'governed by the laws of economics the way the physical world is governed by the laws of gravity.' It's an unusually mundane characterization for Mr. Hennessey, whose most recent book, 'Visible Hand,' is subtitled 'A Wealth of Notions on the Miracle of the Market.'
