The foundations of the welfare state can be found in Bismark’s idea of the social state, which, at first, was used to fight socialists on a political level, but hell is full of good intentions. Bismark in the 1880s created compulsory insurance for accident, health, disability, and age (pensions). He called them “state socialism” and explained that all measures were socialist, and the state had to adapt to a little more socialism.
When liberals argue in favor of equal opportunities, they often presume their meaning to be self-evident. They insist that they do not demand equal outcomes, only equal opportunities. Their aim in demanding equal opportunities is usually to ensure that everyone has an equal starting position in life, or at least that nobody is explicitly prevented from participating in any activities of their choice. This is what liberals mean when they say everyone should have an equal opportunity to get an education or an equal opportunity to enjoy access to good healthcare.
The Misesian: Dr. Jewell, what was your introduction to Austrian economics and the Mises Institute?
Jason Jewell: The presidential election of 2000 was a key moment for me. I was living in Tallahassee at the time, working on my PhD at FSU. As you may remember, Tallahassee was ground zero for the whole “hanging chads” controversy.
Ludwig von Mises wrote:
It is ideas that group men into fighting factions, that press the weapons into their hands, and that determine against whom and for whom the weapons shall be used. It is they alone, and not arms, that, in the last analysis, turn the scales.
[Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right by Quinn Slobodian (Princeton University Press, 2025; 279pp.]
Quinn Slobodian is a professor of international history at Boston University, so you might expect that he has at least some ability for clear and logically exact arguments. If you expected that, you would be mistaken.
One of the most difficult fallacies to recognize, define, and combat is that of a false analogy—two things may share some similarities and are assumed to be alike in other respects without sufficient evidence. Sometimes a false analogy is obvious. For example, tennis and soccer both use balls and are played on rectangular fields, therefore, they are the same. Other false analogies, however, are more subtle and often begin with, “It’s like…” or “Life is like…”
