A Rejoinder To Mr. Ferber

No congressman would tell his constituents, "you may be losing money by SEC regulation, but that is irrelevant, since the men down there are serving a higher moral order." The truth of the matter is that there need be no conflict between good economics and good morality. The confusion arises when the attempt is made to substitute superficial ideas of morality for fundamental economic doctrine. Clearly every decision has an economic impact just as it has moral implications. But how can one judge the moral content or desirability of an act of economic regulation without knowing the effects of it?