I'm not really working on anything for the blog today, thought I will have a post on public choice theory, crony capitalism, and social work soon. I just wanted to write this quote down for future use. It comes from Walter Williams' The State Against Blacks.
While much of the book is on-target, it's points have been made more completely in other sources I have read, the conclusion offers a wonderful synthesis of how classical liberal economics and thought impacts concern for racial discrimination.
"The reason why blacks are disadvantaged because of government intervention is no mystery. There is a kind of parity in the marketplace that does not exist in the political arena. Discriminated-against-people generally do beter under a system where there is market allocation of goods and services than where there is political allocation of goods and services. The market resembles one-man-one-vote. This means that one person's dollar is the same as another person's one dollar. The difference between people lies in the number of dollars they have. No such parity exists in the political arena.
When choices are made int he market arena, people, including poor people, have a higher probability of getting some of what they want, even if they are a minority. When choices are made through the political arena, they very well may get none of what they want. That is, if the majority votes to use social resources to produce X and the minority voted for Y, if majority rule carries the day, there will be no Y."
No comments:
Post a Comment