There is no question that Don Boudreaux, chair of George Mason Universitie’s Economics Department, is smarter than I am. Absolutely none, and this piece about the horrors of Chavez’s Venezuela, and the general child-like mentality of dictators, is a must-read. I think, in general, he nails it:
What is government, especially of the sort headed by Chavez and Castro, but institutionalized grabbing and glorified, high-intensity bullying? “Party A has stuff that I want, either for myself of for my friends. I have the army. I’ll just grab it” – so he does. And if anyone dares resist, well too bad: black-eyes for them (if ‘them’ are so lucky as to suffer only black-eyes).
It’s the easiest thing in the world to imagine problems (real and fantasy problems) solved by brute force. Even children can imagine such a solution. B is poorer than A, force A to give some of what he has to B. Problem solved. C doesn’t live like you think she ought to live – she smokes too much dope, she worships the wrong god, her sexual practices aren’t to your taste – no problem; unsheathe your sword, point it at her throat, and order her to change. Problem solved. D dares challenge your political power – now that’s really bad; shoot him in the name of protecting society. Problem solved.
That’s exactly right: government, at root, only has force and the threat of force to get is way and thusly often acts like a common thug. This can even be extended to the generally good US government in the form of eminent domain, especially in light of the recent Kelo decision. And, contra Deb Frisch, Kelo and dictatorships are fairly unrelated. It’s also an odd swipe to take at a guy who (like myself) thought Kelo was wrongly decided. In any case, Boudreaux gets the attitude of dictators exactly right, and it seems like one could easily add Saddam to his list of historical despots.
That makes this much earlier posting, and this one from June, all the more confusing. If dictators and tyrants are clearly as bad as Boudreaux seems to know that they are, why is it a grotesque crime to eliminate them? Is not one of the few legitimate functions of the State encouraging the freedom of others? Honestly, this is something that’s always confused me about the anti-war libertarian crowd. What is so illegitimate about getting rid of a tyrant? Should we have just waited around, safe here (for the most part) in our ivory tower while ignoring the rest of the world saying, “free yourselves”?
I grant that self-attained freedom is possible for much of the world, and even on a reasonable timeline, but I doubt that the other policy shifts needed in the Weste for that to happen are likely enough to make them worth waiting for. The agriculture and NGO lobbies are far too strong, and aid money will never be cut. Given that, the alternatives are either leaving people wallowing under the oppressive thumb of some tin-horn dictator, or eliminating him. It seems the latter is a much better option.
