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July 10, 2019 - May 17, 2021
Ely said, “no longer permits the science to be used as a tool in the hands of the greedy and the avaricious for keeping down and oppressing the laboring classes.” No one who claimed the mantle of science should advocate “doing nothing while people starve.”
wide use on the right today. They depicted as “rent-seeking” any collective efforts by citizens or public servants to prompt government action that involved tax revenues.
projecting unseemly motives onto strangers about whom they knew nothing.
simply presented his own biases about how the world works to discredit those he opposed.
seeking to make personal hay.
only the federal government had the power to end the long train of damaging injustices shielded by undemocratic state governments.
“the long-smoldering internal campaign of slander, malicious gossip and vilification”
Redirecting guilt.
“conspiratorial secrecy is at all times essential.”
it seems hard to imagine why a man who had so much would become consumed with a need to take down those who just wanted “some more” for themselves
modern man has become incapable of making the choices that are required to prevent his
exploitation by predators of his own species,
was Buchanan’s own understanding of his fellow humans and their relations in society that was truly predatory.
domination of the wealthiest and most powerful over all others appeared the ultimate desideratum, a state of affairs to be enabled by his understanding of the ideal constitution.
What poor man in his right mind would ever consent to rules that would keep him poor?
“Despotism may be the only organizational alternative to the political structure that we observe.”
democracy was inimical to economic liberty.
social and political “regression for the majorities and ‘economic freedom’ for small privileged groups” went together.
rewrite the nation’s constitution to forever insulate the interests of the propertied class they represented from the reach of a classic democratic majority.
capitalist class would be all but permanently entrenched in power.
privatization, deregulation, and the state-induced fragmentation of group power.
federal government (“depoliticizing” economic matters,
Libertarians object to being told what to do, which is oppression. Their liberty is the right to tell everyone else what to do.
forced to act solely as individuals.
limited the government’s role in safeguarding citizens’ well-being.
education, health care, and social insurance, once provided by the state, ceased to be entitlements of citizens.
Add to nationalization the functions of insurance, banking, transportation, and utilities. After nationalization these functions are contracted out to private nonprofits. Contract terms are limited and audited by firms also under contract.
mass purge of teachers
prohibition on political activity
expunge a “half century of errors” when “public opinion was very much against [us].”
new constitution that would make public dissatisfaction irrelevant—or at least sharply curtail the public’s ability to reverse the transformation
“new Constitution which will define our future republican life.”
Code word for Communist.
defined public choice as a “science” (even though he, of all people, knew that there was no empirical research
constitutional ways in which we can limit government intervention in the economy
the government should be denied the authority to make “monetary policy because doing so would surely lead to inflation.”
“2/3 or 5/6 of the legislative body, can approve each new expense.”
guaranteed the power of the armed forces over government in the near term, and over the long term curtailed the group influence of nonelite citizens.
approach to binding popular self-government was that he did it with detailed rules
In the boring fine print, he understood, transformations can be achieved by increments that few will notice,
enable unelected military officials to serve as a power brake on the elected members of the congress.
permanently overrepresent the right-wing minority party
forbade union leaders from belonging to political parties
barred advocating “class conflict” or “attack[ing] the family.” Anyone deemed “antifamily” or “Marxist” could be sent into exile, without access to an appeal process.
the plebiscite and counting the votes owed their jobs to the dictatorship.
always, a particular type of freedom the libertarians cared most about.
body radically skewed by the overrepresentation of the wealthy, the military,
Perhaps his conscience troubled him or he feared condemnation.
As they set about devising binding rules to limit what other political agents could do, would he have seen that they might be using the rule-writing process to keep themselves in power?
naked interest-driven action, bereft of any classical liberal principle.
Pinochet—having done away with independent media, freedom of speech, political parties, and so many regulations—could easily purloin public monies to enrich
established, under false names and with the collaboration of leading banks, 125 separate accounts in seven countries to stash what became an illicit fortune
valued economic liberty so much more than political freedom that he simply did not care about the invitation to abuse inherent in giving nearly unchecked power to an alliance of capital and the armed forces.
broad-based opposition emerged among workers, students, and homemakers
