Reason and the Fairy Tale

Lately I keep hearing about how people just aren't rational; various contradictions to sound economic policies ensue immediately, because allegedly economics is founded on this concept of man as a rational actor- therefore, if man isn't rational economics can't be true. Now, to my mind, this never made any sense because if everyone where irrational, centralizing decision making power into the hands of a few makes even less sense than before- the few will be just as irrational as the many, but the decisions of many individuals will effect fewer people, while the decisions of a few in power will effect all. There's more damage and less chance of fixing anything through iteration with centralized power.

I think, in general, the concept of rationality was greatly inflated by those who wanted it to substitute for faith and morals in the 20th century. Reason is highly limited, and a few folks are finally realizing this, but what they don't get is that they are destroying the positivist paradigm, not economic truth. One can, for instance use reason to commit suicide. The primary motivator in most cases is emotion, but if one chooses to 'have faith in' the emotion, one can begin to use reason to decide what to do and implement the plan.

For humans, symmetry makes up a rather large chunk of what we call beautiful. The celebrities, models, those we consider extremely attractive, are more symmetrical than the rest of us. A similar thing happens in the mind of a socialist, indeed in all of us until we learn the dangers. The structure of a centralized, top-down solution simply looks more attractive. We can picture the structure in our minds, marvel at it simplicity, the beauty of it's form, and assume everyone is completely nuts for not wanting to live with such beauty.

Unfortunately, the structure isn't real. It's a fairy tale. We don't, we can't construct markets- we can only distort or facilitate them, which means either interfering with everyone's choices or removing barriers so that people can make choices. The socialists just can't understand this. They think the fairy tale is real, and that we are being irrational in rejecting it. Whereas previously they tried to use reason against our faith in God, now they are trying to use their faith in the fairy tale to attack our reason.