Sunak and Truss are wrong about solar

Rishi Sunak has joined Liz Truss in grumbling about solar panels in fields. This is all rather dismaying, and revealing. It suggests that Conservative leadership contenders – and the party faithful they’re appealing to – lack faith in the transformative power of markets and free enterprise.

Those solar panels that Sunak and Truss deplore are nothing less than an economic miracle, delivered by private companies seeking profit. Anyone who proclaims themselves supporters of markets should be shouting from the rooftops about this miracle, since it shows how people and organisations freely allocating capital makes our world better, fast.

Private enterprise works because the incentive to make a profit by selling stuff spurs people and organisations to make or provide that stuff better and/cheaper. They can sell that better/cheaper stuff for higher prices and/or in greater volumes, and thus get more money for themselves. This leads people and organisations to specialise and innovate, eternally seeking to make their stuff even better and/or even cheaper, to preserve/increase their sales.