“Soviet-style central planning may have died with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But what has not yet had that demise is that other variation on the collectivist theme: ‘democratic socialism’ (European-style) and the redistributive welfare state.”
“But what is required, what is asked of all of us who care about liberty, is not to allow the everyday ‘trends’ and outcomes of electoral politics to make us so despondent that we ‘give up the good fight.’ Only if we do so will the institutions of the paternalistic welfare state remain intact — even as the money dries up!”
It is worth recalling the state of the world when Ludwig von Mises wrote “Trends Can Change” 61 years ago (see Part I in this series).…
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What energy issues would you like to bring up that are atop your mind? What issues should MasterResource be including that our contributers may not have covered? Or what energy market developments are existing or potential policy drivers for the next years?
Tomorrow will resume our regular fare with Trends Can Change: Part II, authored by noted economist and historian Richard Ebeling. The broader topic of social change is important at this juncture given the ascendancy of neo-Malthusian and neo-Keynesian politics. Comments on political strategy are invited too.…
Continue Reading“[T]rends of evolution can change, and hitherto they almost always have changed. But they changed only because they met firm opposition. The prevailing trend toward … the servile state will certainly not be reversed if nobody has the courage to attack its underlying dogmas.”
– Ludwig von Mises (see below)
Statism won at the top of the ticket earlier this week–and many places beneath. Limited-government advocates are feeling low and wondering if the dependency vote can be overcome in future elections to turn fiscal crises into new opportunities for economic freedom.
Small consolation: the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson beat the Green Party’s Jill Stein by a landslide. But the small parties combined received less than two million votes. Johnson’s 1.2 million votes–about 1.2 percent in the 48 states where he was on the ballot–compared to 400,000 for Stein. …
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