Doug Bandow has a sharp piece today on The Freeman’s site. He discusses the tendency for politicians to congratulate themselves (in particular, California’s Pete Stark) for their “public service” but asks how much good politicians really do, compared with people who work in the free market. The former can and regularly do use coercion to accomplish their goals; the latter must rely on voluntary action. The former rarely suffer when their decisions turn out to have bad consequences; the latter quickly take losses when they make bad decisions. The former usually look ahead only to the next election; the latter usually think much further ahead.