Centralization is appealing because it lets us identify good intentions, and people tend to infer intentions from outcomes—so after Katrina the criticism personalized the failure (Bush 'intends to do bad') rather than recognizing structural confusion, federalism conflicts, and noisy signals; resisting this intention-from-outcome inference is part of the economic way of thinking.

causalpending

Speaker

Peter Boettke

Evidence Quote

they infer intentions from outcomes it's a standard sort of way that you do these things and I think that that part of economics is to resist that part of the lesson of economics

Source

Peter Boettke on Hurricane Katrina and the Economics of Disaster 12/18/2006EconTalk
Created: 6/17/2026, 10:29:22 AM

My Notes

Loading notes...