CAN POLITICAL ACTION SUBVERT ELEMENTARY LAW

CAN POLITICAL ACTION SUBVERT ELEMENTARY LAW From James Buchanan’s “Adam Smith as Inspiration”: “How well are Adam Smith’s ideas understood today, more than two centuries after their presentation? As surprising and as frustrating as it may be to many of us, we find the selfsame mercantilist ideas that Smith attacked being propounded daily by our politicians and pundits. In this respect alone, economics is categorically different from its natural science counterparts. We do not learn the principles of political economy in the same way that we learn the principles of physics. Despite the empirical evidence that we can observe, we continue to think, and to behave, as if we can, through political action, subvert elementary laws.” Comment from Café Hayek: “Faith in the power of consciously instigated collective action to craft society to our liking – especially when that collective action is backed by force that is at least formally under the direction of democratically controlled leaders – is a religious dogma that has caused no end of misfortune and misery.” MY SUMMARY THE ANSWER OF GOVERNMENT IS ALWAYS TO POUND HARDER TO DRIVE THE SQUARE PEG INTO A ROUND HOLE. TO GOVERNMENT, REALITY IS AN ILLUSION.