I don’t know of anyone who does a better job of smashing statist arguments than Don Boudreaux. Here’s a recent letter of his that makes an anti-libertarian professor look very foolish.
Editor, The New York Times Book Review
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
To the Editor:
Critical of “a market-driven society,” Henry Giroux asserts that “At the heart
of this market rationality is an egocentric philosophy and culture of cruelty”
(Letters, May 16).
Let’s ignore the tens of millions of people cruelly enslaved, tortured, and
slaughtered by their own anti-market governments during the past century –
tyrannies cheered on by western intellectuals, such as Prof. Giroux, whose
fetish for strongmen springs from their fantasies of reconstructing society
according to their own puerile designs.
Instead, simply ask: Is (let’s call it) “centralized-power rationality” NOT
egocentric? Do the ‘government-affairs specialists’ headquartered on K Street
lobby for some Aristotelian conception of The Good – or for more butter on their
bosses’ bread? Do elected officials cast aside their own egos and biases and
personal interests to do battle for The People – or is each chiefly motivated by
the perqs and pomp of power? Do government workers regularly sacrifice for the
common good – or do they regularly plead for higher pay and greater job
security?
Yes, egos are at work in markets. But they are no less at work in the public
sector. The big difference is that the egos at work in markets spend their own
money and deal with other people consensually. The egos at work in government
spend other people’s money and deal with other people at gunpoint.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
