We are living in a time when government is growing by leaps and bounds, and increasingly intruding into our lives.
The dangers from growing government may be encapsulated under a variety of headings that I discuss in an article of mine that appears today in the Christrian Science Monitor online, under the title, “Obama, Health Care, and the New Road to Serfdom.”
Central to the growth of government is the ideology of paternalism by those who claim the right to tell the rest of us how to live our lives.
The desire for political power is also strongly motivated by the desire for plunder, that is, the use of the coercive authority of the State to rob Peter to transfer income and wealth to Paul.
Part of the rationale for bigger government is what Hayek called “the mirage of social justice,” under which those in power will decide who is deserving of what portion of the economic wealth of the society that is produced by the productive private citizens of the country.
Among the side effects of these policies is the creation of the perverse incentives that economists sometimes refer to as “moral hazard,” under which anti-productive and excessively risk-taking behavior is artificially subsidized through the interventionist and welfare statist programs of the government.
A huge burden from all that growing government is doing are the massive deficits that are expanding the Federal debt burden, which will be a heavy stone on future generations to come, as government taxes and inflates the currency to meet its financial obligations.
All of this is leading to diminished individual liberty and radically reduced economic freedom. In other words, down that “road to serfdom” about which Hayek warned us so many years ago.
Richard Ebeling
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Seems to me like we’ve been walking down the “road to serfdom” for almost two centuries–and never actually getting there. Perhaps we’re there already. In that case, the “road to serfdom” is nothing but airy optimism, the false hope that the country as a whole can turn back sans violent revolution.
If we aren’t already there, I wonder exactly what conditions constitute “serfdom” in the expression and why those conditions haven’t been met yet, even in places with governments of greater proportion than in the US.
Metaphorically speaking, I suspect something’s wrong with a meteorologist that sees wind and rain as a sure sign that a hurricane is on its way.
From your essay: “All of these factors show the menace and the immorality of the welfare state.”
Good so far, but let us go all the way: “All of these factors show the menace and the immorality of the state. Period.”
Let us therefore be done with it:
http://libertarianpapers.org/articles/2009/lp-1-32.pdf
From your essay: “All of these factors show the menace and the immorality of the welfare state.”
Good so far, but let us go all the way: “All of these factors show the menace and the immorality of the state. Period.”
Let us therefore be done with it:
http://libertarianpapers.org/articles/2009/lp-1-32.pdf
Is it just me or is the Christian Science Monitor becoming something of an outlet for Austrian and libertarian thought?
So long as government is seperate from us, we will always be endangered by it. I think we should have time-share governments, where local counties are ruled by citizens in a roster for the year. If you chose to be a citizen, you would have to do some ‘community service’, such as militia duty and street patrols, and this gives you the right to be part of the government, perhaps in your birth-month. We could all propose laws at any time, and repeal laws, so long as their reach was limited to local property.
As for emergencies, perhaps the captains or heads of the various services could meet and decide how to co-ordinate their teams.
There you have it- government without professional politicians! I will now spens some time squaring the circle.
First, I believe your article touches on only half the problem, that of control justified by social justice. There are those that while desiring to do “good” are afraid that you may not choose to act as they believe you should. I call these folks The Fearful.
The other group you don’t mention are those I call The Conceited. Those motivated by a sense of entitlement, that they deserve some service or care simply by virtue of being alive.
Both are counter to liberty.
@David: You sound more anarchist than libertarian. Not being an anarchist myself, I can’t say I agree with you.
Christoph,
I am a libertarian who rejects anarchism for the same reason Mises did: “Anarchism misunderstands the real nature of man. It would be practicable only in a world of angels and saints.” That is, I accept the nature of man, acknowledging that without law (the modern definition of anarchy), human society would be impossible and so, therefore, would the human enterprise be impossible.
What I reject, with Thoreau, is GOVERNMENT — i.e., a territorial monopoly on the use of force — my belief being that stateless GOVERNANCE under a libertarian rule of law is the only means by which humanity can achieve its extraordinary potential (see the last two sections of my essay), short of which I frankly couldn’t care less.
The Phoenix Of A Classical Liberalism Civilization!
The road to serfdom is now mostly downhill but it is not without detours. At best the detours now appear only to offer a postponement of the arrival at the final destination of the road to serfdom – a fascist/socialist totalitarianism.
It is the bridge at the bottom of the slope that has to be crossed and which happens to be directly in the path of the unstoppable and uncontrollably swelling river that signals to us that the economic law of equilibrium is alive and well!
From the ashes of economic ignorance and political corruption will rise the phoenix of a classical liberalism civilzation!
If I buy a piece of land and attempt to live off that land, growing my own food, raising animals, producing enough extra to barter for those items I can’t produce myself, even if I own the land “free and clear” I can’t escape participating in the cash economy because I still have to pay property taxes. I am forced to produce some good or service or do some labor in exchange for currency in order to pay my property taxes. Once I start earning money to pay my property taxes I then have an income and must also pay income taxes, and so I have no choice but to help subsidize the welfare state.
How is that different from the rents that medieval serfs were required to pay to the land-holding lords?
Doesn’t that mean that as long as we have to pay a property tax that we will always be serfs in a sense? Trapped by a system that requires the use of legal tender, with no way to escape it.
…. Actually, the serfs may have had it better because they could pay in barter and didn’t necessarily have to have the coin of the realm.
I, on the other hand, as a modern American, don’t have the freedom to opt out of the cash based economy – short of finding a loophole in property tax laws, such as starting a church or something.
Shouldn’t part of a free market be the freedom to not participate?
Ribald,
My I suggest a test of your hypothesis would be to pull all of our troops out of foreign lands and then see whether or not we can continue to sell US Treasuries to the world.
Prof Ebeling wrote,
“The desire for political power is also strongly motivated by the desire for plunder, that is, the use of the coercive authority of the State to rob Peter to transfer income and wealth to Paul.â€
Is that all that Prof. Ebeling has to say about it?
Couldn’t he tell us whether or not the policy works, and plunder pays?
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