WHY THE MAN OF SYSTEM FAILS.

Walter Lippmann might not have grasped the knowledge problem as economists now have it.  His understanding of why the fatal conceit is fatal to the technocrats' ambitions is spot on.

Any fool, it has been said, can govern under martial law and any tyro can enjoy the delusion of having advanced the interest of mankind by establishing an armed official with a mandate to advance the public welfare. But it is only a delusion to think that the infinite complexity of human affairs has been put in order by calling in an omnipotent official. All that the thinker has done is to relieve himself of his own perplexities by passing them on to the bureaucracy. He has solved no problem. He has merely appointed officials with a mandate to solve the problem for him.

That might be so, and as Don "Cafe Hayek" Boudreaux notes, the thinker will pat himself on the back for his Good Intentions, never mind that after the bureaucracy has taken on the task, things will not be that much better.  There is no magic button.