Government Failure and MFs

Josh Hendrickson clarifies "market fundamentalism" (MF) and explains why it’s not so much that MFs believe markets don’t fail (although we have to define failure), but that government fails abysmally, and that fretting about inequality is poorly framed fetishism:

Those who are concerned with income inequality often present their argument as though there are two choices. One can either side with the market fundamentalists whose "blind faith" claims that the market will work itself out or they can side with "realists" who believe government intervention is necessary to correct for this market failure. However, this is a false dilemma. As Arnold Kling so eloquently explained, there are many of us who concede that markets fail, but we are much more concerned with government failure. And there is certainly reason to believe that the government will fail to equalize economic outcomes. For example, the most frequent solution to income inequality, and the one advocated by Krugman in nearly every interview about his book, is higher taxes on those at the top of the income scale. While this may give the appearance of lessening inequality, in actuality it does very little. Essentially, it is equivalent to twisting the ankle of the fastest runner in the world in an attempt to make other runners faster. In no way does this make other runners faster.

Indeed, if ever there was blind faith, it is with letting government bureaucracies attempt to solve problems, "equalize" society, and plan utopias — all which ignore the knowledge problem. MFs shun government action precisely because we have neither blind faith nor hubris. We stand humble before the inherent complexity and pluralism of a society in which knowledge-for-problem-solving is a local phenomenon.
-Max Borders