An economy shaped and guided by government bureaucrats and Communist bigwigs by means of tariffs, subsidies, state-controlled credit, and state-owned industries cannot be a real growth miracle for long. This too shall pass.
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.
Immigration Policy Is Local, Too
Tip O’Neill’s quip that all politics is local is often quoted. But is it really the case? If it is, why isn’t the leading issue in the immigration debate the anti-immigrationists’ assault on the rights of other native-born Americans and others lawfully living in the USA?
Severe Moral Imbalance
And the list of such unbalanced moral judgments might be greatly extended. There seems to be no ability whatsoever to differentiate between what is small and what is large, between what is trivial and what is serious in regard to bad behavior.
Justifies Your Cutting My Throat
I’m an American, as the saying goes. Spanish speakers have a more precise word for such gringos, estadounidenses. So what? Am I supposed to have a celebration? Am I supposed to pledge my life, treasure, and sacred honor to a pack of ruling thieves because of this accident of my birth?
Cesspools of Collectivism
Racists and nationalists are among the greatest enemies of people who favor a society of free and responsible individuals, a society in which all persons are seen as equal claimants of natural rights and equally entitled to respect for their human dignity.
Nationalism Is a Weird Ideology
Nationalism is, among other things, a gigantic aggregation error. It takes a huge, enormously diverse collection of people and imagines that each and every individual in the collection is somehow better than each and every individual in other nation-states. The more you think about it, the more idiotic it becomes.
A Surefire Way to Improve the World
Imagine how wonderful it would be if each American, rather than lining up in support of politicians who promise to wield state force to Make America Great Again (or in pursuit of some equally preposterous and meaningless slogan), resolved instead to make himself or herself a better person.
Looking to The State for Justice
In the real world, where the government pours billions of dollars into supporting vast legions of armed border agents, one must choose: shall I back the state or shall I back Pedro and Maria as they attempt to cross the state’s border — itself, of course, the product of previous conquest and plunder?
No One Owns a Culture
One may have preferences about culture. One may have affections for or aversions to a culture or particular elements of a culture. But such preferences do not entail any rights of ownership.
Does Your Vote Matter?
Aggregates of voters may swing an election by voting one way or the other or by not voting. But you, amigo, are not an aggregate of voters; you have only one vote. And how you cast that one vote will almost certainly fail to swing any large election.