A wise quote from a conservative economist

From a "random thoughts" article today by Thomas Sowell:

Someone pointed out that blaming economic crises on "greed" is like blaming plane crashes on gravity. Certainly planes wouldn't crash if it wasn't for gravity. But when thousands of planes fly millions of miles every day without crashing, explaining why a particular plane crashed because of gravity gets you nowhere.

Neither does talking about "greed," which is constant like gravity.

I've always appreciated Sowell for his realism. It's like poking a little hole in the over-inflated balloon of liberal modernism.

Notice, though, that this quote by no means suggests that we ought to do nothing about economic hardships. It only says we ought to correctly diagnose the cause, so we can make a correct prescription.

Nor does it particularly suggest that we shouldn't try to do anything about greed. If it weren't for people trying to fight back societal greed, perhaps greed would steadily increase rather than remain constant.

Anyway, it's just nice to hear Thomas Sowell's common sense every once in a while.