Thomas H. Kang

A despeito de todas as divergências que tenho com os libertários, não deixa de ser interessante o que diz Buchanan em relação aos que acreditam no anarquismo. Afirma Buchanan (p. 35) em "The Economics and the Ethics of Constitutional Order", xingando socialistas e anarco-capitalistas: The romantic image of the state as an omniscient and benevolent entity, an image that had been around since Hegel, was shattered by the simple observation that those who act on behalf of the state are also ordinary humans, like the rest of us [...]. Centralized economic planning, with state ownership and control over means of production, has entered history as intellectual folly. Até aí, nada de novo. A parte mais interessante vem a seguir: At the opposing end to socialism on the imagined ideological spectrum stands the equally romantic ideal of laissez-faire, the fictional image of anarcho-capitalists, in which there is no role for the state for all. In this model, freely choosing individuals, ...

Quer ler um artigo divertido da professora (ex-professor) Deirdre (ex-Donald) McCloskey? Veja aí um excerto. Agradeço a dica ao De Gustibus. Leia-o aqui: Becker (Nobel 1992), a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, asks, for example, why people have children. Answer: because children are durable goods. They are expensive to produce and maintain, over a long period of time, like a house. They yield returns over a long future, like a car. They have a poor second-hand market, like a refrigerator. They act as a store of value against future disasters, like pawnable gold or your diamond ring. So (you will sense a logical leap here; David Hume noticed the same leap in Mandeville and Hobbes), the number of children that people have is a matter of cost and benefit, just like the purchase of a house or car or refrigerator or diamond. A prudent parent decides whether to invest in many children or few, extensively or intensively, early or late, just like investing in ...