Suppose you’re very power-hungry. Do you want people to think they’re able to fix their own problems? Of course not. If individuals can help themselves by doing a good job, learning new skills, making friends, and keeping their eyes peeled, what do they need you for?
Author: Bryan Caplan
Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University and Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center. He is the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, named “the best political book of the year” by the New York Times, and Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent Is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think. He has published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal, the Journal of Law and Economics, and Intelligence, and has appeared on 20/20, FoxNews, and C-SPAN.
Deregulate Discrimination
When regulation is out of control, deregulation is the obvious remedy. And discrimination law really is out of control.
Crusades and You
Every five years or so, the United States has a major societal-wide crusade. Sometimes there’s a shocking event. Other times, there’s an ongoing evil. Either way, all Americans are supposed to join forces and take decisive action to win the crusade. And even if you can’t personally do anything, you’re supposed to get very angry.
Assessing My COVID Expectations
Relative to your expectations, how well did government respond to COVID? How about regular people? How about business?
Anti-Communism and Anti-Racism
I hate Communism. I consider Communists to be the moral approximates of Nazis. I might talk to a youthful Communist, but after the excuse of youth passes, I deem Communists beyond redemption. Even so, if George Mason University adopted an official Anti-Communist policy, I would oppose it.
The Song of Slack
The reason leaders of bad organization do so much evil is not that they couldn’t do good if they wanted to. It’s that people who rise to the top of bad organizations are usually bad themselves.
Admissions versus Asians
Whenever I want a clear-cut example of latter-day racial discrimination, I point to elite universities’ treatment of Asians. As far as I’m concerned, the evidence is overwhelming. The denials are not only motivated reasoning, but desperate motivated reasoning. Still, this leaves me with a puzzle. Do I really think that elite admissions officers wake up […]
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Immigration and Housing: The Meaning of Hsieh-Moretti
Now that we correctly understand Hsieh-Moretti’s results, let’s put them in context.
The Great Political Stagnation
The last 25 years have delivered amazing economic and technological progress for humanity. *Political* progress, in contrast, is hard even to detect during this period.
Businesspeople Earn Every Penny
What motivates businesspeople? While the full answer is complex, the basic answer is clear: Money. People run businesses to get richer – and ideally, to get rich. And whenever I get a small taste of the challenges businesspeople overcome, not to mention the disrespect they endure in our society, I have to say that businesspeople earn every penny.