 the tyranny of good intentions this long quote from walter williams sums up my problem with liberals obsession with controlling markets while american politicians and intellectuals have not reached the depths of tyrants such as lenin stalin mao and hitler they share a common vision tyrants denounce free markets and voluntary exchange they are the chief supporters of reduced private property rights reduced rights to profits and they are anticompetition and promonopoly they are procontrol and coercion by the state these americans who run washington and their intellectual supporters believe they have superior wisdom and greater intelligence than the masses they believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us like any other tyrant they have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others a tyrant s primary agenda calls for the elimination or attenuation of the market why markets imply voluntary exchange and tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do therefore they seek to replace the market with economic planning and regulation which is little more than the forcible superseding of other people s plans by the powerful elite it s their arrogance that bothers me the most their view that liberals know better than i how to spend my money raise my child or live a in lifestyle of my choosing as cs lewis wrote  of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive  