The market versus politics. The former is, by and large, an error correction process, whereas the latter is, by and large, an error amplification process. If private property owners find that their resources are yielding a lower return than they could get in alternative employments, they reallocate their resources to the higher-valued uses. In contrast, if political actors, especially legislators and government bureaucrats, find that programs are not working as promised or expected, they misrepresent the failures and seek additional funding from the pool of coercively collected revenue. Failing private ventures tend to be curtailed or abandoned altogether, but failing public ventures are often expanded and may persist indefinitely, propped up by lies, obscurantism, and a stream of taxpayer money poured down a societal rat hole. ~ Robert Higgs
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 20:15:00 +0000
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