My letter to the NY Times re: Japan's Solar Mandates Lack Free Market Coordinating Function

Re: Japan's Growth in Solar Power Falters as Utilities Balk

Dear Sirs:

One of the prime reasons for the failure of Japan's solar power initiatives is the government's ignorance of the coordinating function of the the free market. The article lays the proximate cause of its huge untapped solar power generation capacity in the paucity of the appropriate infrastructure to bring the power to its users. This is similar to the experience time after time in the Soviet Union. For example, bumper wheat crops rotted in the fields due to the lack of transport and storage facilities. Government bureaucracy is no substitute for the millions of subtle free market coordinating processes that bring the most mundane goods and services to our doorsteps at just the right time in just the right amounts and at affordable prices.