Dog-eat-dog competition
From
Arnold King:
If you think that competition for wealth in a capitalist economy is bad, consider the alternatives. In particular, think about competition for money and power in an economy where markets are weak and government is strong.
Recall Bryan Caplan’s aphorism:
Free markets are awesome because they give business incentives to do good stuff that sounds bad. Governments are awful because they give politicians incentives to do bad stuff that sounds good.
The institutions that emerged out of the Enlightenment that set up competition in various realms, including scientific research and business, all worked well for a long time. But those institutions are threatened by people offering false utopian alternatives.
2 comments:
Ben Franklin:
"There are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice—the love of power and the love of money. Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but, when united in view of the same object, they have, in many minds, the most violent effects."
…and Irving Kristol:
"Now, the pursuit of power is a zerosum game: you acquire power only by taking it away from someone else. The pursuit of money, however, is not a zero-sum game, which is why it is a much more innocent human activity. It is possible to make a lot of money without inflicting economic injury on anyone. Making money may be more sordid than appropriating power—at least it has traditionally been thought to be so—but, as Adam Smith and others pointed out, it is also a far more civil activity."
Our society has been increasingly *coupling* the pursuit of political power and the pursuit of money. It can be very, very profitable to achieve a reasonably high position in the government bureaucracy, then move over into the private sector...BlackRock, let's say...and then, after a few years, return to government at a higher level. Then rinse and repeat.
"
Public choice, in its basic insights into the workings of politics, in corporates an understanding of human nature that differs little, if at all, from that of James Madison and his colleagues at the time of the American Founding. The essential wisdom of the 18th century, of Adam Smith and classical political economy and of the American Founders, was lost through two centuries of intellectual folly.
James M. Buchanan
Post a Comment