… is from page 271 of the 1990 Transaction Publishers reprint of W.H. Hutt‘s great 1936 book, Economists and the Public:
The actual work of governments has been determined not by the rational thought of a liberty-seeking community, but by power-thought – the power-thought of private interests and politicians.
Yes, without question. Yet the typical “Progressive” continues to imagine the state to exist in the same way that a four-year old child imagines Santa Claus to exist: as a super-human force for good that possesses a supernatural capacity for pursuing and achieving that good. There is, in practice, no epistemological difference between the belief of many children that dusk on December 24th causes reindeer to fly and the belief of many adults that minimum-wage legislation causes the incomes of all low-skilled workers to rise. Higher-skilled workers, and the labor unions that represent them – as well as some firms that use fewer low-skilled workers than are used by their competitors – are only too happy to promote this juvenile fantasy.
