Paved with Political Bullshit

April 4, 2018 Robert Higgs

According to an old saw, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Insofar as politics is concerned, I have great doubt.

I’ve been following politics more or less closely and studying parts of it carefully since the 1960s. And insofar as we have in mind stated political intentions, I would judge that the statements are nearly all false, and known to be false and intended to mislead by those who make them.

These charlatans know full well that, for example, the public interest they claim to serve is nothing but a rhetorical cloak for the benefits they seek to channel at public expense to their friends and supporters.

In short, the road to hell is paved with political bullshit. Good intentions are so rare as to verge on nonexistent.

Written by 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.