“Obviously neither the optimal amount of government intervention nor the optimal level of taxation is zero.” Maybe it is just me, but I am not convinced by Posner’s flippant remark. Analysis of the subjects of intervention and its subset, taxation, leads me to the conclusion that the general welfare and the psychic satisfaction of individuals in society can only increase as the amount of intervention decreases. But then again, I probably am not weighing the ordinal satisfaction of particular individual’s wants in the “correct” fashion to see what Posner and the interventionists do. Perhaps I can work with some indifference curves and see if just a little more intervention by the state is justified.

Overall this is a good article in that it shows how the court intellectuals provide the cover that the state requires for its initial expansion and then the explanation by Higgs shows how the state’s retrenchment is never fully completed. I guess if the technocrats can fool themselves sufficiently into believing that the state is benevolent in its actions, then I can understand how they can sleep at night.