Professor Gruber, Social Scientist Masquerading As Scientist

[From article]
J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer, the great physicist who led the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, was an heir of Isaac Newton, who invented modern science. Newton showed that science could be used to manage nature. Ever since Newton, fools have believed that, by analogy, social science could be used to manage human nature. The fact that this has never worked has not diminished the faith of progressives in this idea
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It was Oppenheimer that we saw on the Gruber tapes. He took some shots at the public, and opened the progressive kimono by admitting that Obamacare could never have been passed if its supporters had told the public the truth about it
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Gruber must think he is an Oppenheimer -- that through his intellect and his academic training, he is in possession of a body of knowledge not available to the public at large and is capable of creating something new and spectacular.
[. . .]
All economics models fizzle when exposed to the subjectivity of value, but that does not diminish the reputations of those who built them. That is the difference between physics and economics. And the difference between the U.S. and the old Soviet Union. And the difference between success and failure in human affairs.
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Why, then, does the market work? Because it discards failure. A capitalist economy generates almost nothing but failure. The wealth that we see around us, that supports us all, is those few things that worked. Everything that didn’t work, which was most of the things tried, has been discarded.
But a government bureaucracy rarely discards anything, rarely recognizes failures and rarely changes in light of it. That is why the societies they rule fail. The bureaucracy succeeds -- meaning perpetuates itself and its privileged position - and the society fails. But because the bureaucracy is so entrenched, is so secure in its positions and privileges, it is almost impossible to dislodge it except through military failure.
[. . .]
If we use a literary analogy and if Oppenheimer is the sorcerer, Gruber is the sorcerer’s apprentice. Creating chaos by a misapplication of the sorcerer’s powers.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/01/jonathan_gruber_sorcerers_apprentice.html

January 2, 2015
Jonathan Gruber, Sorcerer's Apprentice
By Greg Richards