Credit Card Caps Are Price Controls, Too: Allison Schrager

Ever since college, I have subscribed to the Enlightenment view of the world, which is based on the belief that knowledge mostly moves forward. Experimentation and scholarship produce facts and evidence, which expand the realm of human understanding, which helps us unravel such mysteries as the origins of economic growth or why croissants are so much better in France.

This view has been sorely challenged in the last few weeks. Democratic and Republican politicians, going against an economic consensus that stretches back decades if not centuries, appear to have decided that price controls are good. Price controls, they say, will ...