by Art Carden See original post here...
Consider this: we live in a world in which drivers will speed up in order to prevent you from getting over even though you very clearly had your turn signal on. It’s a minor annoyance with major political implications.
Friedrich Hayek put it this way throughout his work: the social problem is not designing institutions in which good people can do the most good. Rather, it is designing them so that bad people can do the least harm.
Look around you. You live in a world in which people will voluntarily bear a cost in order to impose a cost on another.
With an election on the horizon, it’s worth remembering what George Washington had to say about this.
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”¹
We should never forget that, and be especially wary of its use by fallen people in a fallen world.
¹1902 November, The Christian Science Journal, Volume 20, Number 8, Liberty and Government by W. M., Start Page 465, Quote Page 465, Published by the Christian Science Publishing Society, Boston, Massachusetts.
Art Carden is an Associate Professor of Economics at Samford University’s Brock School of Business.
In addition, he is a Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, a Senior Fellow with the Beacon Center of Tennessee, and a Research Fellow with the Independent Institute.
Art's research has appeared in the Journal of Urban Economics, the Southern Economic Journal, Applied Economics, Public Choice, and Contemporary Economic Policy, and my commentaries have appeared in Forbes, USA Today, and many other outlets.
He earned a BS and MA from the University of Alabama and an AM and PhD from Washington University in Saint Louis.
Before joining the faculty at Samford, Art taught economics at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with my wife and three children.
You can learn more about Art by visiting artcarden.com.
Want to connect through social media? You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest.
