Fire and Knowledge

A market economy allows accurate knowledge to be effective in influencing decision-making, even if 99 percent of the population do not have that knowledge. In politics, however, the 99 percent who do not understand can create immediate political success for elected officials and politics that will turn out in the end to be harmful to society as a whole.

—Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics (3rd Edition, Basic Books, 2007), p. 318.