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The always interesting Jane Galt made a pithy and amusing critique on behavioral economics (the study of the rationality, or lack thereof, of economic actors in the [free] marketplace; often used by the left to criticize the idea of free market efficiency):

The post below also applies to behavioural economics, which the left seems to believe is a magical proof of the benevolence of government intervention, because after all, people are stupid, so they need the government to protect them from themselves. My take is a little subtler than that:

1) People are often stupid
2) Bureaucrats are the same stupid people, with bad incentives.

Asymmetrical Information:

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The Jane Galt on Behavioral Economics by New School Politics, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.