“Luck egalitarianism” is a philosophical fad, and in the past I have had some characteristically unkind things to say about it. I’d like today to discuss a new argument that concerns luck and government.
The economist Robert H. Frank says in Under the Influence,
President Trump’s decision earlier this month to assassinate Iran’s top military general on Iraqi soil — over the objection of the Iraqi government — has damaged the US relationship with its “ally” Iraq and set the region on the brink of war. Iran’s measured response — a few missiles fired on an Iraqi base after advance warning was given — is the only reason the US is not mired in another Middle East war.
The Iranian regime and the Saudi Arabian regime are longtime enemies, both vying for control of the Persian Gulf region. Part of the conflict stems from religious differences — differences between Shia and Sunni Muslim groups. But much of it stems from mundane desires to establish regional dominance.
For more than forty years, however, Saudi Arabia has had one important ace in the hole in terms of its battle with Iran: the US’s continued support for the Saudi regime.
Professor Janek Wasserman, to his credit, is not a polemicist. His new book The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas is indeed a critique of the broad school of economic thought now colloquially referred to as “Austrian,” but it is not only that.
