re: The Scum Rises to the Top

March 18, 2014

Mike, your comment reminds me of what my old friend and co-author Jim Bennett called his “Septic Tank Theory of Government”:  The big chunks rise to the top.  It’s also reminiscent of chapter ten of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, entitled “‘Why the Worst Rise to the Top.”  The more pervasive “government planning” becomes, said Hayek, the greater the “opportunities” in government for the brutal and the unscrupulous, for it takes brutality and amorality to enforce the coercion that is necessary in a “planned” utopia, whether it is called communism, socialism, fascism, or the more pleasant-sounding “social justice,” “progressivism,” or “democracy.”  Try not paying for all the CRAP the government claims that you want and they will send armed men to apprehend you and will force you to live in a government cage for many years.

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The Best of Thomas DiLorenzo

Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo [send him mail] is a former professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland and a longtime member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute. He is the author or co-author of eighteen books including The Real LincolnHow Capitalism Saved AmericaLincoln UnmaskedHamilton's CurseOrganized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About GovernmentThe Problem with Socialism; and The Politically-Incorrect Guide to Economics