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… 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 [2]:
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.
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