| re-reading Sowell |
12. Nov 2026|13:10 |
"In politics - whether electoral politics or ideological politics - the word 'crisis' often means whatever situation someone wants to change. Far from automatically indicating some dire condition threatening the public, it often means simply a golden opportunity for surrogates to use taxpayers' money and the government's power to advance the surrogates' interests, whether these interests are political, ideological or financial."
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par brīvību: "..Lyndon Johnson administration in the 1960s, for example, a Cabinet member in that administration used the redefinition of freedom as increases of the kind of things that governments can provide, rather than a personal autonomy in one's own decision and behaviour:
Only when he can support himself and his family, chose his job and make a living wage can an individual and his family exercise real freedom. Otherwise he is a servant to survival without the means to do what he wants to do.
Some years later, a book by two Yale professors - Politics, Economics and Welfare - likewise defined freedom in terms of things received, rather than autonomy preserved. As they expressed it, "we shall try to unravel some of the complexities in the theory and practice of freedom." Their conception of freedom was "the absence of obstacles to the realisation of desires." The "complexities" of this Wilsonian definition of freedom are certainly understandable, since evading the obvious can become very complex. When Spartacus led an uprising of slaves, back in the days of Roman Empire, he was not doing it to get welfare state benefits." |
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