Some Champions Of Ever-greater Governmental Power And

Economics Is Haunted By More Fallacies Than Any Other Study Known To Man

The Larger The Percentage Of The National Income Taken By Taxes The Greater The Deterrent To Private Production And Employment. When The Total Tax Burden Grows Beyond A Bearable Size, The Problem Of Devising Taxes That Will Not Discourage And Disrupt Production Becomes Insoluble.

We Are So Accustomed To The Miracle Of Private Enterprise That We Habitually Take It For Granted. But How Does Private Industry Solve The Incredibly Complex Problem Of Turning Out Tens Of Thousands Of Different Goods And Services In The Proportions In Which They Are Wanted By The Public? ... It Solves These Problems Through The Institutions Of Private Property, Competition, The Free Market, And The Existence Of Money - Through The Interrelations Of Supply And Demand, Costs And Prices, Profits And Losses.

Socialists Will Often Talk As If Some Form Of Superbly Equalized Destitution Were Preferable To "maldistributed" Plenty. A National Income That Is Rapidly Growing In Absolute Terms For Practically Everyone Will Be Deplored Because It Is Making The Rich Richer.

Government Relief Tends Constantly To Get Out Of Hand. And Even When It Is Kept Within Reasonable Bounds It Tends To Reduce The Incentives To Work And To Save Both Of Those Who Receive It And Of Those Who Are Forced To Pay It. It May Be Said, In Fact, That Practically Every Measure That Governments Take With The Ostensible Object Of 'helping The Poor' Has The Long-run Effect Of Doing The Opposite.