Ironically, then, any equality of opportunity that could be constructed would always lead to inequalities of outcome. Bill Gates would roll up at the suggestion that Microsoft's success was akin to a winning lottery ticket. That Tanner imagines that it could be otherwise should beggar belief. The same process that allowed the likes of Hong Kong and Japan to catch up with the West. In fact, so loosely does he use the word institution that the local darts club would qualify as one.
Nothing is too small, even sporting clubs, to escape the 'benevolent hand' of the state.
He compounded his errors when he entered the field of economics. He has completely missed the target. Expenditure on consumption could do nothing to raise real wages on the contrary, such schemes as Tanner's do much to retard the growth of real wages by directing spending from investment to consumption. This is the kind of gross economic error the Asian Tigers have no intention of making. Unlike Mr Tanner and his socialist ilk, they understand the real process of raising real wages while simultaneously creating more and better jobs.