O Intermitente
(So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, good-bye)

quinta-feira, outubro 02, 2003

Is Our Economic Freedom Eroding?

Despite some very encouraging signs toward economic freedom noted above, the U.S. and most of Europe are becoming less free. As Robert Higgs noted in a paper presented at the recent Mont Pelerin meeting, " ... all sorts of economic, environmental, health and safety, and social regulations continue to spew out of Washington and Brussels, among other places. In addition, however, the U.S. government especially requires ever more uncompensated information collection and reporting by its subjects in order to slake the Surveillance State's insatiable craving for the most minute details of everyone's conduct. ... Simultaneously, the state and local governments, as well as various international bodies, continue to pour out endless streams of their own regulations, all of which entail resource costs and sacrifices of citizens' liberties." Unfortunately, this trend toward less economic freedom is likely to continue until citizens insist their legislators get serious about demanding real cost-benefit analysis for all government spending and regulations (both existing and proposed) and the courts are forced to go back to protecting fundamental liberties, in particular privacy and property rights.

posted by Miguel Noronha 6:37 da tarde