The Clenched COVID Fist of Government
Government Coercion Violence
05/14/2020Gary Galles
Years ago, Leonard Read came up with a fine analogy for understanding what citizens want government to do for them. Now, it also provides insight into the current COVID circus.
Read’s analogy arises from the fact that since government has no resources that it does not extract from its citizenry, it can only benefit all citizens when it can make more efficient use of resources than they can. Consequently, we must ask where government has a comparative advantage over voluntary organizations.
The answer is coercion. In our mutually agreed arrangements, we cannot coerce others. That is why some define government as the entity generally agreed to have a monopoly over coercion.
https://mises.org/wire/clenched-covid-fist-government
