Prosperity and Wrecking Balls

Don your article reminds me of the situation in the country I was born, Cuba. First the wrecking ball destroyed everything but later, every now and then the ruler found necessary to release some steam out of the boiler so he authorized some freedom to do business to the few farmers still nominally independent to get more food to the people but when those farmers got a little wealth he crushed them, it happened a couple of times and now nobody is willing to take chances again. Add that to the self-selection promoted by another of Castro's favorite ways of "releasing steam", letting people leave the island plantation and the result is a prostrated citizenry that even if the regime collapses and the right institutions are established will have a hard time recovering from the near Haitian hell it is right now.

Just because you can create and destroy jobs at will does not mean you should be treated as if you were the Almighty.

However, said tower does not get built out of selling out your nation's sovereignty. Nor does it get built by having contempt for your own citizens, favoring others.

A friend of mine who had been stationed in Korea noted that frequent invasions had led to a culture of minimal prosperity in village culture so as to be less of a target for looters.

But we need the wrecking ball to create jobs fixing the tower!

eh...what? you mean wealth isn't created by stealing it from the poor?

Heh. Yeah. And it isn't even created by stealing it from the rich either.

Yep...many people don't seem to understand the significantly better results that can be created with voluntary, mutually beneficial exchange versus coerced exchanges that may or may not produce mutual benefits.

Mutual benefits and choice are important feedback loops to wealth creation.

If we were to nitpick... an exchange which must be coerced requires force precisely because it doesn't produce a mutual benefit.

Have you ever noticed that the more coercion in a country the more screwed up everything is?

I agree.

I have noticed. I've also noticed it on smaller scales too, in the different ways companies and charity organizations are managed, in the different ways families interact with one another, in the different ways schools operate, how different organizations within the same company are managed, how libraries operate, etc.

crazy, isn't it? Everyone seems to notice it when it effects them. And yet some of those very same people think that how well a coerced exchange works out depends totally on the person doing the coercing.

People are starting to wake up, though. I have some hopey in my changey these days.

It is crazy. I'm not so sure people notice it when it effects them. I think it's very subtle.

Even if who did the coercing mattered and they trusted their guy with that power, they don't seem to consider that they may not like who might wield that power in the future. They seem to live in a fantasy that they 'just have to keep the right people in power.'

When the state is a confederation of exploitation it matters very much who holds the reins.

but it always tends toward power hungry psychopaths. Who else desires to hold the reins of a confederation of exploitation?

It's the jockey and horse question. Was Stalin inevitable in a Soviet system? I think he was.

You'll notice that those people quite often use the first person when referring to the government and the third person when referring to society.

true dat.