But simplistic free market optimism is misplaced for at least four reasons.

That the elite believes this story is one indication of just how condescending and out of touch its members are.

The gullible Sancho Panza was meant to adopt the revolution s deceptive dogma as entitlement to wage a brutal war against all.

How did this simplistic, certainly unscientific, and frequently damaging approach gain such dominance?

Now, am I being naive? Is it naive to think that people could ever lay down their swords, and left and right could actually work together?

The global media should now go further, and begin to examine the many features of the rise of China and India that depart from the simplistic narrative of the triumph of market reform.

But who is being naïve? It is quite right to argue that governments should aim only to balance their budgets over the business cycle, running surpluses during booms and deficits when economic activity is weak.

Better technologies have allowed the world economy to continue to grow despite tough resource constraints in the past. But simplistic free market optimism is misplaced for at least four reasons.

In his great novel, The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky gives these words to Ivan, addressed to his naive and devout younger brother, Alyosha If the sufferings of children go to make up the sum of sufferings which is necessary for the purchase of truth, then I say beforehand that the entire truth is not worth such a price.

The genuinely naïve or ignorant position is to believe that statesmanship and foolproof controls, rather than sheer dumb luck, have enabled the world to go almost seven decades without a nuclear weapons catastrophe.

It is quite right to argue that governments should aim only to balance their budgets over the business cycle, running surpluses during booms and deficits when economic activity is weak. But it is wrong to think that massive accumulation of debt is a free lunch.