Collectivism is not only the greatest enemy of sound economic reasoning. It is even more so the greatest enemy of sound moral reasoning. Sad to say, I am trapped in a world in which such unsound — indeed, often monstrous — argumentation is more the rule than the exception. May God have mercy.
Author: Robert Higgs
Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at the Independent Institute and Editor at Large of the Institute’s quarterly journal The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, the University of Economics, Prague, and George Mason University. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow at the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation.
Rulers Fully Intend to Plunder and Bully
The hurdle over which most people cannot jump is the belief that government means well, that it acts so harmfully only because it chooses inappropriate means for the attainment of its laudable objectives.
Tailor Your Ideology Into Relevance
PROPOSITION: Until libertarians tailor their ideology and their actions to accommodate the common people’s nativism, nationalism, ethnic bigotry, and support for U.S. imperialism abroad and police brutality at home, they can never gain enough adherents to become a serious factor in American political life.
In U.S. Universities, a Divorce Is Needed
If the worthwhile parts of the U.S. universities are to continue to thrive, or even to survive as serious endeavors, it would seem that a parting of the ways must come. The STEM fields must separate themselves from the bullshit parts of the universities. The latter can then go their own way to fester in their nonsense until the general public awakens to the need to cease supporting such activities altogether.
Socialism Is Dead; Participatory Fascism Has Triumphed
Unlike full-fledged socialism, which leads to totalitarian rule, mass poverty and economic decay, participatory fascism not only placates people’s wish to participate in the formal process of government decision-making but also permits private entrepreneurs enough room for maneuver that they can in some cases get rich; also enough that they can keep national output at a tolerably high level and in some cases even generate positive economic growth.
A Kind Word on Behalf of the Mexicans
They are in the great majority of cases good and decent people seeking what most people seek—an opportunity to work toward building a better life for themselves and their children. For those of us who know them more intimately than most, it is painful to hear the ignorant and malicious statements that circulate about them, especially perhaps on social media, where people are frequently unrestrained in letting loose the most vitriolic and baseless accusations.
Public Choice Analysis a Scheme for Imposing Racist Oligarchy on the USA? Preposterous!
The claim that public choice analysis is intended to, or actually does, assist the rich in dominating the poor, or the capitalists in dominating the workers, or the whites in dominating the blacks cannot be made in good faith by anyone who has the slightest familiarity with public choice analysis.
I Reject the Right of the Government to Choose My Friends and Enemies for Me
From time immemorial, the reigning myth of rule has been that the rulers provide a quid pro quo: in exchange for the people’s submission and payment of tribute, the rulers protect the people from the enemies who lurk “out there.” The promise was often unfulfilled, however.
The Tangled Web of Anti-immigration Argumentation
So, which is it, anti-immigrationist: is the government too incompetent to exclude ineligible recipients from getting benefits, or is it too incompetent to keep illegal immigrants out the the country—or is it both?
Is a National Government Necessary for National Defense?
Gordon Tullock used to taunt anarchists by asserting that if the USA abolished its government, people would not have to worry about the Russians taking over the country because “the Mexicans would get here first.”