We have long normalized the idea that economics is the use of scarce resources. The problem is that, if resources are scarce, the only option left is to decide how to allocate them, leading to a real struggle—sometimes violent—between the parties to see who gets what little there is.
Over the past few decades, mankind has watched helplessly as political power has expanded without limits. The aggrandizement of the executive branch, centralized planning, and governments’ habitual resort to purported “emergency” measures have constricted liberty, undermined voluntary cooperation, and brought about a sharp decline in economic prosperity. This trend leads citizens toward ever-greater subjugation to the State’s coercive apparatus—the very road to serfdom that Friedrich von Hayek envisioned in the midst of the Second World War.
Walter E. Williams often made the point that a policy should be judged by whether it works, not by its good intentions. This warning is especially important because politicians are experts at declaring good intentions. If we judge them by their stated intentions alone, when their schemes end in disaster they could simply remind us that they meant well. Unfortunately, Professor Williams’s warnings went unheeded.
The US Treasury Department last week released its monthly report on federal spending and revenue. March spending for the US federal government was up by more than $20 billion, or by nearly four percent, from March of last year.
On Sunday, April 12, John Williamson (1937–2021)—the distinguished economist of the Peterson Institute—passed away. Williamson is best known for coining the term “Washington Consensus” in a 1990 article.
