Source: EconLog
by Pierre Lemieux
“Most if not all government policies consist in, and are only effective by, arbitrarily taking sides and discriminating among citizens. It is largely a political fairy tale that governments produce ‘public goods’ that all citizens want, thereby benefiting everybody. When they do produce goods or services that can be called ‘public,’ it is most often for a specific group of citizens. And nothing guarantees that most citizens will come out as net beneficiaries of the sum of government interventions. Governments are essentially, or at least mostly, redistributive machines. The underlying justification for redistribution is the utilitarian fiction that the favored citizens gain more than the ones discriminated against lose, that the former are more helped than the latter harmed.” (09/26/24)
https://www.econlib.org/taking-sides-between-potential-and-current-homeowners/