In sum, the real cause of continually rising food prices is the printing of money by world governments. And the real cause of actual food shortages is the prevention of profitable global trade in food by the ill-advised policies of the governments of the very people who are starving.
It’s time that we question the very foundations of this war on recession. The recession is a regrettable but inevitable backlash against a boom that was not justified by the fundamentals.
The problem for free-market economists is that their policy recommendations at the dawn of recession are not too sexy to the political mindset. They involve either doing nothing to hinder price adjustments, or actively removing extra-market barriers to price adjustments that already exist. This often involves short-term pain in exchange for long-term solutions, when politics rewards short-term solutions that result in long-term pain.
The state is the most destructive institution human beings have ever devised—a fire that, at best, can be controlled for only a short time before it o’erleaps its improvised confinements and spreads its flames far and wide.
One of our gravest problems is that we find ourselves confronting the armies of bureaucrats who already control us, and who have a vested interest in keeping and expanding the controls they were hired to enforce. . . .
We libertarians have our work cut out for us.
Whenever the public doesn’t get what it wants and consumer demand is subservient to corporate interest, the most likely culprit is government policy. On the free market, consumers drive production, whereas under a system of protectionist corporatism, politicians and bureaucrats guide the market.
After the Great Depression hit, there was a general air in the United States and Europe that freedom hadn’t worked well. What we needed were strong leaders to manage and plan economies and societies.
And how they were worshiped—disgustingly so!
The solution to the crisis in higher education is to take the government out of the equation.
However horrendous we might find the mass shootings at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and other places, the fact is that when disaffected people start planning mass mayhem, the lack of a gun will not stop them.
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.
