Trade creates wealth. Profits direct businesses toward activities that increase wealth. Competition increases efficiency and innovation. Taxation and regulation discourage production and destroy wealth . Political decision-making favors plunder over production.
Central planning wastes resources and retards economic progress.
A common assumption underlying many policy proposals is that human behavior is somehow fixed, regardless of the new circumstances the policy would put in place. Economists, on the other hand, emphasize that human behavior by and large is the result of choices among alternatives. Any change in the alternatives available or the relative attractiveness of those alternatives will have an effect on peoples' choices. Incentives do matter. Experience bears out the importance of incentives for altering behavior.