Does Nearly Everyone Favor Industrial Policy?

When you walk around, you see no economy. It is not a thing like a machine, a building, or a vehicle. When we say economy, we mean individual persons acting in a series of continuing and more or less regular relationships that involve money in transformation of stuff from less-useful to more-useful forms, as consumers view things. Government officials don’t regulate an economy; they regulate individuals–us!–thereby interfering with our lives, liberties, purposes, and pursuit of happiness.

The Fraught World of Second-Bests

When discussion turns to how to make government “better,” however any particular person would conceive that condition, libertarians understand that we are in the fraught world of second-bests. In other words, because of the nature of the state, no solution that merely attempts to reform it will be or could be truly satisfying. The system will continue to feature exploitation, rent-seeking, public-choice and knowledge problems, and worse.

Rebel, but Make It Responsible

Did the past year signal the end of liberty, or just put a few more nails in its coffin? Is liberty under a greater threat these days or is it only a matter of perception? I hope it’s the latter, even though I suspect it’s the former. I plan to pry some of those coffin nails out before it’s too late to salvage what we’re losing. I hope you’ll help.