It’s Too Easy Too Spend Other People’s Money
21st January 2016
Don Boudreaux, a Real Economist, points out an Inconvenient Truth.
My late, great colleague Gordon Tullock famously pointed out the many possibilities to “do well while doing good.” (See chapter 6 in this collection edited by my colleague Dan Klein.) However, as I note in my most recent column in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, too many of my fellow economists, while perhaps superficially intent on doing good, are not so intent that they are willing to risk any of their own money on such efforts. They wish to do good only by spending mostly other people’s money and by stripping away mostly other people’s freedom and options. This consistent and chronic refusal of policy advocates to put their own money where their mouth’s are is as sure a sign as is humanly possible that these do-gooders are too reckless to take seriously.