Robert Higgs
Robert Higgs
Robert Higgsis an American economic historian and economist combining material from Public Choice, the New Institutional economics, and the Austrian school of economics; and a libertarian in political and legal theory and public policy. His writings in economics and economic history have most often focused on the causes, means, and effects of government power and growth...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth1 February 1944
CountryUnited States of America
lying war president
When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie.
war president intention
Since the end of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, presidents have misled the public about their motives and their intentions in going to war.
war people political
...History shows that ... (people) can be deflected from their natural tendencies by artful propaganda, bogus crises, or other political trickery.
military war preparation
This is the true lesson of our history: war, preparation for war, and foreign military interventions have served for the most part not to protect us, as we are constantly told, but rather to sap our economic vitality and undermine our civil and economic liberties.
real war class
In U.S. history, war has served as an important diversionary tactic, causing the people at large to shift their attention away from the state's own criminality and toward real or fictitious devils abroad. Wars have therefore proved to be extremely useful in propping up the political class and preserving it from the public resistance and rebellion that might otherwise have arisen.
war responsibility men
H. L. Mencken famously said that 'every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.' By now, however, I am no longer ashamed, because I do not identify with the government under which I live. Rather, I view it as a criminal organization that without provocation has chosen to make war on my just rights-not only mine, of course, but everyone's. Although this vile enterprise is my problem, because it robs and bullies me relentlessly and without mercy, it is not my responsibility: the nail is not the hammer.
aftermath black common creativity death face faith government great modicum people prosper running society survive
We need to have a modicum of faith in people's common sense, creativity and will to survive and prosper even in the face of great difficulties and obstacles. If people could keep society running in the aftermath of the Black Death, they could keep it running after the U.S. government defaulted on its debt.
activity adoption although disappear eventually foreign germany life medium people result south
Austria, Germany and the U.S. South did not disappear as a result of their currencies' ruin. Although many people suffered, most people found a way to survive, life went on, and economic activity eventually resumed after the adoption of a 'reformed' or foreign medium of exchange.
collapse deadly disasters excessive food fuel government lethal natural oppressive
Some doomsayers think the collapse will be triggered by runaway government spending, excessive taxation, oppressive regulation, food shortages, fuel shortages or natural disasters such as deadly pandemics or lethal changes in the world's climate.
counted creating days early economic firm gets government money pay people private produce spend spending ton value
If you have a private firm and you spend a ton of money to pay employees, but what you produce is a flop, there will be no value to GDP. But government spending all gets counted as contributing to economic growth. That's why in the early days of creating these measurements, some people didn't want to count government spending.
population four lines
It would take little more than $50 billion to raise every poor person above the official poverty line, yet the percentage of the population classified as poor hardly budges, while annual welfare spending amounts to four times that much. Where's the money going?
exercise violence sound
It is a sound interpretive rule...that anything that cannot be accomplished except with the aid of threats or the actual exercise of violence against unoffending persons cannot be beneficial to one and all.
liberty horror menace
All nonstate threats to life, liberty, and property appear to be relatively petty and therefore can be dealt with. Only states can pose truly massive threats, and sooner or later the horrors with which they menace mankind invariably come to pass.
exercise done obsession
Nothing has done more to render modern economic theory a sterile and irrelevant exercise in autoeroticism than its practitioners’ obsession with mathematical, general-equilibrium models.