Economics and the State
Political Economy
Submitted by Cato the Younger on Thu, 2006-11-16 04:29Political Economy: An Overview
by Ryan Setliff
by Ryan Setliff
"Economics can tell us how wealth is created, and how, once created, it is distributed; but it is powerless to tell us how wealth should be distributed, at least not without explicit information about how much people value their material wealth," notes Samuel Gregg.1 Gregg writes further,
The distribution of the end product of economic activity—that is, material income and wealth—is strongly influenced by the distribution of the ownership of basic resources. If someone owns a great deal of land and capital or, alternatively, is gifted with some rare and highly prized talent (such as a beautiful singing voice,) it usually follows that such a person is richly rewarded by the market system. If the distribution of basic resources—land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurial ability— follows a particular pattern, the distribution of income and wealth will follow much the same pattern.2
Federal Budget
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2006-11-16 20:16As economist Wilhelm Roepke observed, "The and the concentration of its power, exemplified in the predominance of the budget, have become a cancerous growth gnawing at the freedom and order of society and economy. Surely, no one has any illusions about what it means when the modern state increasingly—and most eagerly before elections, when the voter's favor is at stake—assumes the task of handing out security, welfare, and assistance to all and sundtry, favoring now this and now that group, and when people of all classes and at all levels, not excluding entrepreneurs, get into the habit of looking on the state as a kind of human providence." 1
- 1. Roepke, Wilhelm, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market, (South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1960), p. 33.
