… is from page 77 of Deirdre McCloskey’s excellent 2019 book, Why Liberalism Works: How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All:
It is not really “protection” anyway. It’s favoring. As in Mafia usage, governmental “protection” is regularly corrupted for the favoring of the rich. It is a tax on the enterprises that provide cheap goods and services for poor people. It violates the equal liberty of people – Americans or foreigners or non-mafiosi – to compete without physical coercion in offering good deals to American consumers.
DBx: Indisputably so.
Tariffs, subsidies, occupational licensing, “certificate-of-need” requirements – these and other impositions victimize peaceful people in order to enrich the few.


It is not really “protection” anyway. It’s favoring. As in Mafia usage, governmental “protection” is regularly corrupted for the favoring of the rich. It is a tax on the enterprises that provide cheap goods and services for poor people. It violates the equal liberty of people – Americans or foreigners or non-mafiosi – to compete without physical coercion in offering good deals to American consumers.
