PRESTOPUNDIT -- "It's a team sport, baby!"

Academia. "If your temperament favors freedom without responsibility, then there are certain occupations that are a good fit. Academic life is one of them .. ". More Arnold Kling. Quotable:

The libertarian critique of Freedom Without Responsibility is that taking away responsibility leads to taking away freedom. The only way to provide collective benefits is by taxing those who work, save, and innovate. The more you try to alter market outcomes, the more you have to take away people's freedom. Friedrich Hayek warned that this was The Road to Serfdom. What he saw was that under both Communist Socialism in Russia and National Socialism in Germany, the loss of individual responsibility was accompanied by the eradication of freedom ..

Freedom Without Responsibility does not scale up to the level of society. As government takes over more responsibility from the individual, rewards start to accrue to the most ruthless and effective political operators .. As government tries to second-guess market processes, it makes matters worse instead of better. A remote central government is not suited to playing the role of what George Lakoff calls a nurturant parent ..

Freedom Without Responsibility may feel like a natural ideology for a cloistered academic. That does not make it an intelligent approach for public policy. Academics should correct for their natural biases by broadening their understanding of alternative points of view and by understanding the larger economic system. Adherence to any ideology, including liberalism, without question or re-examination, is what is really stupid ..

Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack