Minimum Wage: A Most Remarkable Belief
July 21, 2019 – Pierre Lemieux …… Even if the minimum wage increased the total value of production, it would still be a strange belief to view it as a desirable public policy.
Rule of Law, The Social Contract
There Is No Such Thing as a Social Contract, but so What?
May 3, 2019 – Antony Davies, James R. Harrigan …… There is much firmer ground upon which to build than an imaginary social contract to which no one was ever a signatory.
In Defense of Bribery at SNC-Lavalin
April 8, 2019 – Lee Friday …… Bribery should be considered wrong only when individuals violate their terms of employment, in which case the culprit is the bribee, not the briber.
Police Have No Duty to Protect You, Federal Court Affirms Yet Again
January 23, 2019 – Ryan McMaken …… The “social contract” is a one-way street. You pay your taxes or go to jail. In return, the government may or may not provide some of those services you supposedly pay for.
Lack of Police Accountability Shows the “Social Contract” Isn’t Working
March 19, 2018 – Ryan McMaken …… We’re told that we pay taxes in return for government “services.” But what happens when the state doesn’t keep up its end of the bargain?
We Need Bastiat’s “The Law” More than Ever
March 7, 2018 – Frank Hollenbeck …… The law, as currently defined, is corrupt. As Frédéric Bastiat told us, “It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions, our work, our trade, our talents, or our pleasures. The function of law is to protect the free exercise of these rights, and to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise of these same rights by any other person.”
All Government Powers are Based on Mystical Justifications
February 27, 2018 – Richard Ebeling …… It is one of the great political mysteries: the success of governments in ruling over societies with little popular resistance, even when those governments have been brutal tyrannies. This has been no less true for democratic regimes, under which levels of taxation have been far higher and degrees of regulation much more intrusive than under tyrants of bygone ages.
Rule of Law: Order versus Justice
January 8, 2018 – Randall Holcombe …… One of the most important factors that generate prosperity is rule of law, which means having an objective set of laws that apply to everyone.
Do We Really Consent to be Governed?
December 4, 2017 – Robert Higgs …… Grudging, prudential acquiescence, however, is not the same thing as consent, especially when the people acquiesce, as I do, only in simmering, indignant resignation.
Representative Government suffers from the Principal-Agent problem
September 2, 2017 – Robert Higgs …… For the most part, political agents are not truly accountable to the principals, but only to the major contributors to their re-election campaigns. Accountability is in general much more myth than substance.