I really thought that the Project Team of the Sustainable Development Project (SDP) meant what they said in the document they recently sent to my home; namely, "Before we make plans, we need to know what YOU think." This is an excellent idea and one with which I am in full agreement. I then told them what I thought, albeit through The Royal Gazette, and I also responded via the web.

What I failed to understand was that what they really meant by asking leading questions was, we want you to endorse unthinkingly whatever we decide is good for you. However, if you disagree, please do not say anything.

By stating clearly what I think, I have been called cynical by Ross Andrews; having double standards, writing rubbish, creating a straw man, against public education, a paranoid anti-communist, and a dinosaur by Stuart Hayward. By implication, it is assumed, wrongly, that I am hostile to improvements in the environment and sustainable development ? this is, of course, not the case.

Much of the criticism arises because I pointed out that because of the nature of many of questions asked conceptually the SDP contains significant flaws and that it is not so much a plan for environmental improvement, as the name sustainable development implies, but has the makings of a comprehensive economic plan for the future of Bermuda.

I simply went where logic, the facts, experience, and a passing acquaintance with recent economic history, told me to go.

I should also have had the courtesy to call Mr. Andrews, the chief of the SDP, as he suggested in the Mid Ocean News on August 5. For that failure I apologise, but my record of receiving any kind of government cooperation (I have been trying to obtain the Actuary's Report on the Government social security Fund for five years but keep getting the run-around) is terrible but that is not good enough reason for my discourtesy.

The impression has also been created that I am strongly opposed to government action. Nothing could be further from the truth. Government is probably the most beneficial of all human institutions, and without strong, honest government, civilisation and moral life would be impossible. I have spent much of my working life in countries where there was inadequate and incompetent government and the consequences are horrendous. To spend any time in say, Haiti, Bolivia or parts of Guatemala is to understand that without competent government our quality of life plummets and life as we know it in Bermuda is impossible.

But back to the Sustainable Development Initiative. The word planning implies ordered procedures, predictability, rationality, respectability, and a degree of certainty in an increasingly uncertain world. But it is based on a false assumption namely that a committee of those who are wiser and loftier than ordinary people, know better what benefits the common man than they do themselves.

It also suggests that a plan is a good example of purposeful action, and is vastly superior to the absence of any planning. The only problem is that economic planning does not work. It is a remarkable tribute to the dedication of planning advocates that they continue to keep the faith, and are impervious to the lessons of experience.

Economic planning is so well known for its conspicuous failures that it becomes a matter of political prudence to change its name to something more benign and acceptable. Such names have appealing titles to fool the public such as; social justice, the new Bermuda, social agenda, black economic empowerment, and sustainable development. In the United States, President Johnson in 1965 dreamed up "the great society"; in UK there was "the social contract", in Germany the "social market", and in China under Chairman Mao there was "the great leap forward". All were failures but they would never have got off the ground had they been termed economic planning so some grandiose fancy title had to be coined to fool the public. Alas, even a committee of the great and good cannot change a donkey into a horse simply by calling it a horse.

As Tom Vesey of The Bermuda Sun correctly says, appealing titles are great rallying cries and great sounding phrases, but difficult to define with any precision. They are useful to deflect criticism, and perfect for the politicians to escape accountability. The SDP team have obviously learned their lessons well hence the touchy-feely title of sustainable development ? it is sufficiently nice sounding because no one is against anything that is sustainable and no one is against development ? just as no one is against motherhood and apple pie. Critics can also be silenced by accusing them of being against the environment.

All of us in our private capacities plan for the future. We plan what we intend to do today, next week, next year or even 20 years hence. We plan vacations, what car we wish to buy, what subjects we want to study in order to get ahead, when we go to the supermarket. The list is endless. Government planners give the impression that they think the private world is messy, one of chaos even anarchy, where all we do is drift along oblivious of the consequences of our actions ? flying blind as it were. The plans of ordinary people are thought to be at cross-purposes with those of everyone else, recklessly pursuing our selfish private interests rather than the public interest.

Now if we as private individuals plan, and government wishes to plan, what is the problem? The real question that arises is: what plan takes precedence; whose plan is more important? Our plans as private citizens, or those of government?

If the government plan is identical with the sum of individual private plans, there is no problem, but then there would be no point in mounting a planning exercise. But if they differ, as they undoubtedly will, whose plan will be preferred? If you say the government plan, give yourself ten out of ten. What this means is a diminution in our freedoms, and given the dismal record of planning all over the world, misery and less prosperity for Bermudians. Individuals and businesses will be free to act so long as what they do complies with the plans and objectives of the government plan. If their plans differ from those of government they will be compelled to adjust their behaviour and ambitions to what those in authority think is good for them.

Self-interest creates prosperity

Economies work best when people are allowed to get on with their lives, and in the wonderful invisible hand metaphor of Adam Smith, the motivating force of self-interest creates an unintended consequence of prosperity. That metaphor is the most famous example of illustrating that there is a marvellous economic order that operates efficiently without the designing hand of authority.

Politicians believe that if they constantly intervene, they can create a result far superior than what they think are the undirected actions of the public. Appeals to social justice, to create a more financially equal society, or to stimulate this or that activity are as economically senseless as a geographer who suddenly announces that the world is, after all, flat or a mathematician stating that two and two are not four but five. Political interference throws sand into the economic machine so that it functions less efficiently than before. Politicians or the project team of the SDP cannot repeal the settled principles of economics anymore than they can repeal the laws of gravity.

At the risk of irritating Mr. Hayward, Adam Smith I believe said it best:

"Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which force things into another channel, or which endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point are unnatural, and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical."

To a great extent this has been the economic philosophy of Bermuda for many years, and it has stood us in good stead. We are one of wealthiest and most wonderful places in the world. We are not Utopia, and Bermuda is not perfect, but it is difficult to think of anywhere that has been as blessed as Bermuda.

Both Mr. Hayward and Mr. Andrews, in making comments about my original essay in The Royal Gazette, have not tried to refute any of the points I have made. Mr. Hayward has resorted to the well-tried "ad hominem" argument ? a Latin term meaning to attack the man not the issue, especially if the issue cannot be logically defended. He also used the other evasive technique know as polylogism ? that it is a waste of time to refute anything someone says, all that needs to be done is to unmask their white middle-class background. That then settles the matter because they are all liars. People like me are simply mouthpieces of their class who are unable to think independently and, by definition, they are against the disadvantaged.

Finally, Mr. Hayward stated that the "most offensive and least factual is his stated assumption that the SDI will propose high paying jobs for themselves ? nothing could be further from the truth". The Mid-Ocean News on August 5 reported in an interview with Ross Andrews that "his six-month contract in Bermuda has been extended through January as his team works towards an action plan."

Congratulations Ross. A word of advice from someone who is older but not wiser than you and has been around the block a few times. When January comes hold out for a three-year deal at a salary at least double what you are being paid. You have no competition and in the free market economy that I admire so much you should be able to write your own ticket.

@EDITRULE:

A number of people have asked on what foundation are my arguments built and have asked for reading suggestions on the subject. What I have written are not my original thoughts ? I am not bright enough for that ? but are based on well-known established propositions of economics. My suggested reading would be:

1. "The Road to Serfdom" by F.A. Hayek (the 1974 Nobel Laureate) which is one of the most influential books of the 20th century, widely credited for undermining communism.

2. Also by Hayek, "Individualism and Economic Order ", especially chapter IV on the use of knowledge in society.

3. "The Vision of the Anointed" by Thomas Sowell ? highly readable.

4. "Do the Right Thing" by Walter Williams ? also highly readable.

5. More journalistic, and in many ways more enjoyable is the very recent "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki of the New York Times which is sub-titled "Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies, and nations."

6. Finally, probably the best written piece on the stupidity and fallacies of economic planning is "The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt", chapter 17. Hazlitt is a former columnist for the New York Times and Newsweek, as well as a prolific and erudite author of several major books.