The changes in the data whose reiterated emergence prevents the economic system from turning into an evenly rotating economy and produces again and again entrepreneurial profit and loss are favorable to some members of society and unfavorable to others. Hence, people concluded, the gain of one man is the damage of another; no man profits but by the loss of others.
[Libertarianism Today • By Jacob H. Huebert • Praeger, 2010 • Vii + 254 pages]
If a pure market economy is so good, why does it not already exist? If governments are so bad, why are they dominant throughout the world today? Indeed, is the widespread adoption of free markets ever likely to occur?
A great thinker once wrote that “all things useful are of such a nature that where there is too much of them they must either do harm, or at any rate be of no use, to their possessors.”1
As one who loves consistency, I have urged Paul Krugman in my Krugman-in-Wonderland post today to be consistent with what he preaches and spend all of his income. If he wants to “invest” or “save,” he can buy government bonds, since the government is spending everything it gets these days.
It is easy to see why Michael Sandel is a popular Harvard professor. He presents major ideas of ethics and political philosophy in a clear way, tied to important contemporary issues. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, based on a famous course that Sandel teaches, offers a discussion of what Sandel regards as the three main competing views of justice.
