Other Schools of Thought

Society is too complicated, too far reaching, too much a reflection of the free volition of individual actors, for government to be able to accomplish its ends.

With the egalitarian ideology at its core, the EU is heading in a direction that is opposite its original destination. The aim of the EU officials is to create a collective block and to build a high fortress around it. That block will hamper the growth of Europe.

How is it justifiable to take a person's property in order to fund the very government that is established to protect that property?

This "greatest benefit" to the least advantaged is doubly meaningless, since the only society that would qualify as just is one in which the identity of the least advantaged is irrelevant.

The 'ability-to-pay' principle resembles more the highwayman's principle of taking where the taking is good.

What was the pre-Misesian movement like?

Here we are 138 years later with many people still believing in the economic virtues of subsidies from farm programs to energy development.

For most people, economics has ever been the “dismal science,” to be passed over quickly for more amusing sport. And yet, a glance at the world today will show that we pass over economics at our peril.

The benefits of a system of old-age security without the state would be more than economic. It would also foster the acquisition of personal virtues and responsibility, which would then be reflected in other spheres of private and social life. A non-governmental system would even treat the least fortunate members of the society with more humanity and dignity, and there would be fewer such people overall.

I had a enlightening exchange with an international economics professor recently about Marxist dogmas inserted into neoclassical economics.