I love the emphasis of Michael Munger's site on economics -- Coase Theorem, rent-seeking, externalities, the theory of the firm, the role of the price system, etc. I love statements like this:
- There are also some truly "public" public goods that government can legitimately and effectively provide. But only great vigilance can ensure that the scope of government power does not expand beyond its legitimate ambit.
- The main tasks of government is to banish fraud and coercion from human interactions.
- The truth is that education in economics—as opposed to trade studies in business or marketing, or the applied mathematics taught as "economics" in universities—is nearly nonexistent. So, citizens have a correct but inchoate intuition that something is wrong. Since they have no way of perceiving the real problem of unrealistic expectations, we reform endlessly. We spend huge resources appointing task forces and study groups, and trying to get the right people in government to write the right legislation.
However, I don't think I would say the following (which is somewhat at odds with the last statement above):
- The reason I want to run for Governor of North Carolina as a Libertarian is that I want to restore good government to our great state.
And I would drop the first of these two sentences:
- I do not advocate the legalization of all, or even most, drugs. But I would favor decriminalizing most drug possession, and most other victimless crimes including prostitution.
The following language is excellent:
- The ideal setting for human flourishing is a society of free and responsible individuals. Responsible individuals are sovereign over their own lives, subject only to the laws of space and time, and only those additional laws they give their consent to. No one should be coerced into sacrificing his or her values for the benefit of others. As a responsible individual I must accept the consequences of my choices, and refuse to use political means to coerce others into sacrificing their values to compensate for my bad choices
It's really awesome that we have an EconLib contributor running as one of our flagship candidates. His campaign will definitely be getting a contribution from me.
