The respected and conservative free-market thinker Alan Greenspan, the revered former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, declared today he was “partially” wrong in thinking the free-market system could regulate itself.

He told Congress today: “I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.”

Does this economic crisis—and more specifically Greenspan’s admission that there may be flaws in the free-market system—have implications for the debate over vouchers, and the theory that competition and free markets will improve public education?

(UPDATE: In fact, the Cato Institute’s Andrew J. Coulson takes an in-depth look at this question in a September 2008 policy analysis titled “Markets vs. Monopolies in Education: A Global Review of the Evidence.”)