Caplan could just as easily have written, "An optimal solution to education would actually involve gang members randomly beating up college freshmen." I am not exaggerating. Caplan's statement is literally equivalent to my own suggestion.
Mencken saw the implications of where his thinking was leading him and he acknowledged those implications frankly. "I am," he wrote in <em>The Smart Set</em> in 1922, "a libertarian of the most extreme variety."
Bailing out Bear Sterns while letting Lehman fail, the two TARP votes, and the incessant clamor about (nonexistent) systemic risk were geared toward bailing out Wall Street firms on the wrong side of housing risk.
Government spending — whether on our current armed forces and their more than 800 foreign bases or on "green" energy and other government-favored projects — does not produce prosperity. It only diverts resources.
Despite the chorus of praise, the TARP bailout was a terrible idea that will cost taxpayers both directly and indirectly through its perverse incentives. Only the Austrians consistently opposed the Republican and Democrat bailout schemes.
The leading Baconian in political economy, who was also, fittingly, a pioneer in statistics and in the alleged science of "political arithmetic," was the fascinating opportunist and adventurer Sir William Petty (1623–1687).
How often do you hear the minarchist say, "Well, I don't like government, but we at least need things like traffic laws. We need a government to keep us safe"? What if we actually began to publicly advocate the abolition of traffic regulations?
Regardless of their relative merits, bribes are a phenomenon distinct from taxation and regulation. Examining where and to what extent illicit bribes exist sheds further light on the distinction between the private, voluntary economy, and the public, coercive one.
Obama says that the key to progress is good government. Not so. The real common thread to progress is free enterprise. Progress and prosperity have followed movement toward freer markets and secure property rights.
Austrians get a bum rap for their prescription for recession. The readjustment process is not cruel; it is about permitting production to align more closely with consumer preferences. Recovery, like growth and development, requires forward-looking planning.
