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… is from page 73 of the late UCLA economist Jack Hirshleifer [2]’s April 1963 paper “Disaster and Recovery: An Historical Survey,” as this paper is reprinted in Hirshleifer’s 1987 collection, Economic Behavior in Adversity [3]:
The endogenous causes of disaster or collapse are more subtle, in as much as no obvious destruction of resources may be visible. Those observed here were dissolution of or threats to the institution of property, and disruption of the mechanism of monetary exchange.
DBx: No surprise.
The calamities uncorked by threats to the institution of private property are obvious to any and all thinking persons. Equally obvious should be the dangers that inevitably follow from the “disruption the mechanism of monetary exchange” – disruption of the sort caused by inflation, by price controls, and by lockdowns.