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Writing in the New York Times, Deirdre McCloskey explains that the poor are enriched by market-driven economic growth and not by government-enforced ‘redistribution [2].’  A slice:

A practical objection to focusing on economic equality is that we cannot actually achieve it, not in a big society, not in a just and sensible way. Dividing up a pizza among friends can be done equitably, to be sure. But equality beyond the basics in consumption and in political rights isn’t possible in a specialized and dynamic economy. Cutting down the tall poppies uses violence for the cut. And you need to know exactly which poppies to cut. Trusting a government of self-interested people to know how to redistribute ethically is naïve.

Another problem is that the cutting reduces the size of the crop. We need to allow for rewards that tell the economy to increase the activity earning them. If a brain surgeon and a taxi driver earn the same amount, we won’t have enough brain surgeons. Why bother? An all-wise central plan could force the right people into the right jobs. But such a solution, like much of the case for a compelled equality, is violent and magical. The magic has been tried, in Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China. So has the violence.

George Will rightly worries about the enthusiasm of Sen. Jeff Sessions (Trump’s nominee for U.S. Attorney General) for that banana-republic practice now so widespread in the United States, civil-asset forfeiture [3].  A slice:

IJ’s [Institute for Justice’s] Robert Everett Johnson notes [4] that this senator missed a few salient points: In civil forfeiture there usually is no proper “judicial process.” There is no way of knowing how many forfeitures involve criminals because the government takes property without even charging anyone with a crime. The government’s vast prosecutorial resources are one reason it properly bears the burden of proving criminal culpability “beyond a reasonable doubt.” A sued businessperson does not have assets taken until he or she has lost in a trial, whereas civil forfeiture takes property without a trial and the property owner must wage a protracted, complex and expensive fight to get it returned. The Senate Judiciary Committee might want to discuss all this when considering the nominee to be the next attorney general, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions.

The late historian Ralph Raico reflects on the rise of liberalism in western Europe [5].

Jeffrey Tucker offers this fine remembrance of Ralph Raico [6].

GMU Econ doctoral candidate Joy Buchanan uses Christmas cookies to explore the law of supply [7].

Mark Perry continues to document – and to celebrate – the riches made possible by global trade [8].

The title of Kevin Williamson’s latest essay is spot-on correct: “Trump’s Carrier deal is government busyness, not the government’s business [9].”  (HT Warren Smith)

Jeff Jacoby is appalled at the useful idiots who applaud(ed) Chavez’s and Maduro’s rape of Venezuela [10].

Shikha Dalmia writes sensibly about the Christmas tussle [11].

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