John Stossel on 'Rinkonomics': Forget Leaders, You Should Be in Charge
20/20 Asks: Is It Unnecessary to Have People in Power?
When we tried to "govern" the skating rink by shouting orders with a bullhorn, things got worse. Skaters hated it. Some fell down. I suppose a politician would say we failed at "leading" the rink because we're not smart enough, or don't know enough about skating. We asked Olympic gold medalist Brian Boitano to take the bullhorn. He didn't do any better.
Skaters at the rink hated our direction. "It kind of ruins the fun of it," one woman said. "I don't wanna do it then if someone's telling you what to do."
The moral: Intuition leads us to think that complex problems require centrally planned solutions, but political decision-making is rarely the answer. Life works best when we govern ourselves.
20/20's Tori Ueltschi contributed to this report.
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