Cronyism and Corporatism

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop are joined by Patrick Newman.

Tuesday night’s Vice-Presidential Debate was remarkable not for what was said (which was forgettable), but for what was not asked: What should be the proper role of government in what purports to be a free society? Neither candidates nor the moderators were interested in that question.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to make the federal government more efficient. But if the true aim of our political system is not to solve the problems facing Americans but to transfer wealth to the government and the politically-connected, the government is already very efficient.

The standard belief is that slavery was about obtaining “cheap labor,“ yet nothing could be further from the truth. Slavery comes with high opportunity costs, which is why American slave owners depended upon several government regulations to subsidize their “peculiar institution.”

When our ruling classes speak of “believing in democracy,” they are speaking of a romantic version of a form of governance that, in real life, is quite different than the sanitized version presented in our media. 

Despite claims from progressive historians that US slavery was a natural outgrowth of a free market economy, the reality is that slavery would have been much costlier without governments—federal and state—subsidizing it. It is time to set the record straight.

The standard belief is that slavery was about obtaining “cheap labor,“ yet nothing could be further from the truth. Slavery comes with high opportunity costs, which is why American slave owners depended upon several government regulations to subsidize their “peculiar institution.”

When our ruling classes speak of “believing in democracy,” they are speaking of a romantic version of a form of governance that, in real life, is quite different than the sanitized version presented in our media. 

How do we guard against misinformation when business firms join with government to promote things that simply are false? As Murray Rothbard noted, people still have reason and the free will to make decisions for themselves.

Despite claims from progressive historians that US slavery was a natural outgrowth of a free market economy, the reality is that slavery would have been much costlier without governments—federal and state—subsidizing it. It is time to set the record straight.