He described the sheer efficiency of free markets and the overwhelming failure of communism and socialism. However, the Professor pulled back from such a leap for a number of reasons. He contends that- Unprecedented market freedom in the long run creates family breakdowns, inequitable distribution of income, unemployment and underemployment of youth and moral devastation, dishonesty and ill will. Free markets are efficient in the short run but they promote immoral values that destroy this efficiency in the long run. He states that economists following in the intellectual path of Adam Smith employ theories and techniques that are simplistic and do not account for the complexity of man.
Economists do use theories that are gross simplifications.
Raise the price of a good or service, for instance, and the demand will decrease. However, in a wide range of applications these theories produce valid predictions of what will occur in real life. Economists tend in many cases to describe relationships in mathematical terms and use complex statistical techniques on tons of data. Unfortunately, the world is complex. This may offend some moralists.