Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Bureaucratic Collapse   [John Derbyshire]

Mark:  Dunno about you, but the more I contemplate our federal government and its works, the better Murray Rothbard is starting to look.

It was in 1949 that Rothbard first concluded that the free market could provide all services, including police, courts, and defense services better than could the State.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised.  Probably there are limits.  (The quip about Rothbard used to be that in a Rothbardian world, the proprietor of a lighthouse, seeing that some ship at sea was using the lighthouse to navigate by, would have to jump into a rowboat, make his way to the ship, and demand a fee from the captain.)  It may be that immigration control is inside those limits, though.

I note the following, by the way, from that Wiki entry on Rothbard:

He split with the Radical Caucus at the 1983 national convention, and aligned himself with what he called the 'rightwing populist' wing of the [Libertarian] party, notably Ron Paul, who ran for President on the [Libertarian Party] ticket 1988.

Ron Paul?  Name rings a bell...

05/29 09:09 AMShare