Political Economy and John Stuart Mill

HIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY BY PROF. J. E. CAIRNES 1873

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The task of fairly estimating the value of Mr. Mill's achievements in political economy—and indeed the same remark applies to what he has done in every department of philosophy—is rendered particularly difficult by a circumstance which constitutes their principal merit. The character of his intellectual, no less than of his moral nature, led him to strive to connect his thoughts, whatever was the branch of knowledge at which he labored, with the previously existing body of speculation, to fit them into the same framework, and exhibit them as parts of the same scheme; so that it might be truly said of him that he was at more pains to conceal the originality and independent value of his contributions to the stock of knowledge than most writers are to set forth those qualities in their compositions. As a consequence of this, hasty readers of his works, while recognizing the comprehensiveness of his mind, have sometimes denied its originality; and in political economy in particular he has been frequently represented as little more than an expositor and popularizer of Ricardo. It cannot be denied that there is a show of truth in this representation; about as much as there would be in asserting that Laplace and Herschel were the expositors and popularizers of Newton, or that Faraday performed a like office for Sir Humphrey Davy. In truth, this is an incident of all progressive science. The cultivators in each age may, in a sense, be said to be the interpreters and popularizers of those who have preceded them; and it is in this sense, and in this sense only, that this part can be attributed to Mill. In this respect he is to be strongly contrasted with the great majority of writers on political economy, who, on the strength, perhaps, of a verbal correction, or an unimportant qualification, of a received doctrine, if not on the score of a pure fallacy, would fain persuade us that they have achieved a revolution in economic doctrine, and that the entire science must be rebuilt from its foundation in conformity with their scheme. This sort of thing has done infinite mischief to the progress of economic science; and one of Mill's great merits is that both by example and by precept he steadily discountenanced it. His anxiety to affiliate his own speculations to those of his predecessors is a marked feature in all his philosophical works, and illustrates at once the modesty and comprehensiveness of his mind.

On some points, however, and these points of supreme importance, the contributions of Mill to economic science are very much more than developments—even though we understand that term in its largest sense—of any previous writer. No one can have studied political economy in the works of its earlier cultivators without being struck with the dreariness of the outlook which, in the main, it discloses for the human race. It seems to have been Ricardo's deliberate opinion that a substantial improvement in the condition of the mass of mankind was impossible. He considered it as the normal state of things that wages should be at the minimum requisite to support the laborer in physical health and strength, and to enable him to bring up a family large enough to supply the wants of the labor-market. A temporary improvement, indeed, as the consequence of expanding commerce and growing capital, he saw that there might be; but he held that the force of the principle of population was always powerful enough so to augment the supply of labor as to bring wages ever again down to the minimum point. So completely had this belief become a fixed idea in Ricardo's mind, that he confidently drew from it the consequence that in no case could taxation fall on the laborer, since—living, as a normal state of things, on the lowest possible stipend adequate to maintain him and his family—he would inevitably, he argued, transfer the burden to his employer, and a tax, nominally on wages, would, in the result, become invariably a tax upon profits. On this point Mill's doctrine leads to conclusions directly opposed to Ricardo's, and to those of most preceding economists. And it will illustrate his position, as a thinker, in relation to them, if we note how this result was obtained. Mill neither denied the premises nor disputed the logic of Ricardo's argument: he accepted both; and in particular he recognized fully the force of the principle of population; but he took account of a further premiss which Ricardo had overlooked, and which, duly weighed, led to a reversal of Ricardo's conclusion. The minimum of wages, even such as it exists in the case of the worst-paid laborer, is not the very least sum that human nature can subsist upon; it is something more than this: in the case of all above the worst-paid class it is decidedly more. The minimum is, in truth, not a physical, but a moral minimum, and, as such, is capable of being altered with the changes in the moral character of those whom it affects. In a word, each class has a certain standard of comfort below which it will not consent to live, or, at least to multiply—a standard, however, not fixed, but liable to modification with the changing circumstances of society, and which in the case of a progressive community is, in point of fact, constantly rising, as moral and intellectual influences are brought more and more effectually to bear on the masses of the people. This was the new premiss brought by Mill to the elucidation of the wages question, and it sufficed to change the entire aspect of human life regarded from the point of view of Political Economy. The practical deductions made from it were set forth in the celebrated chapter on "The Future of the Industrial Classes"—a chapter which, it is no exaggeration to say, places a gulf between Mill and all who preceded him, and opens an entirely new vista to economic speculation.

The doctrine of the science with which Mill's name has been most prominently associated, within the last few years, is that which relates to the economic nature of land, and the consequences to which this should lead in practical legislation. It is very commonly believed that on this point Mill has started aside from the beaten highway of economic thought, and propounded views wholly at variance with those generally entertained by orthodox economists. No economist need be told that this is an entire mistake. In truth there is no portion of the economic field in which Mill's originality is less conspicuous than in that which deals with the land. His assertion of the peculiar nature of landed property, and again his doctrine as to the "unearned increment" of value arising from land with the growth of society, are simply direct deductions from Ricardo's theory of rent, and cannot be consistently denied by any one who accepts that theory. All that Mill has done here has been to point the application of principles, all but universally accepted, to the practical affairs of life. This is not the place to consider how far the plan proposed by him for this purpose is susceptible of practical realization; but it may at least be confidently stated that the scientific basis on which his proposal rests is no strange novelty invented by him, but simply a principle as fundamental and widely recognized as any within the range of the science of which it forms a part.

There is one more point which ought not to be omitted from even the most meagre summary. Mill was not the first to treat political economy as a science, but he was the first, if not to perceive, at least to enforce the lesson, that, just because it is a science, its conclusions carried with them no obligatory force with reference to human conduct. As a science it tells us that certain modes of action lead to certain results; but it remains for each man to judge of the value of the results thus brought about, and to decide whether or not it is worth while to adopt the means necessary for their attainment. In the writings of the economists who preceded Mill it is very generally assumed that to prove that a certain course of conduct tends to the most rapid increase of wealth suffices to entail upon all who accept the argument the obligation of adopting the course which leads to this result. Mill absolutely repudiated this inference, and, while accepting the theoretic conclusion, held himself perfectly free to adopt in practice whatever course he preferred. It was not for political economy or for any science to say what are the ends most worthy of being pursued by human beings: the task of science is complete when it shows us the means by which the ends may be attained; but it is for each individual man to decide how far the end is desirable at the cost which its attainment involves. In a word, the sciences should be our servants, and not our masters. This was a lesson which Mill was the first to enforce, and by enforcing which he may be said to have emancipated economists from the thraldom of their own teaching. It is in no slight degree, through the constant recognition of its truth, that he has been enabled to divest of repulsiveness even the most abstract speculations, and to impart a glow of human interest to all that he has touched.

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Socialist Theories & Literary Utopias

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Communist Theories and Utopias By Theodore Dwight Woolsey 1880

PLATO—SIR THOMAS MORE—CAMFANELLA,

The communities hitherto noticed had at their foundation no direct purpose of acting upon general society or upon the state. Their object, rather, was to keep away from their members the influences of the outside world as far as possible, and in all liberty to develop their own social and religious views. To society, as at the time constituted, they entertained no such hatred as the most modern socialists feel. They thought only that they had reached a better form of society, yet one which it would not be possible for all men to adopt; one that all men would not willingly adopt. Their plans thus ended in a great degree with themselves and with separation from the rest of mankind.

But might not principles similar to theirs, in some respects, be carried out upon a larger scale and by the state itself? In every old society there have been and must perhaps always be evils, growing out of institutions as old and as much revered as the state. There is, especially in a society which is growing corrupt in consequence of its prosperity, and which is advanced enough in reflection to think upon the causes of social evils, a tendency to search for some cure of these evils, which lies beyond the reach of individuals and can only be applied by the highest authority. And it is not strange that inexperienced, speculative thinkers, who saw how much evil arose from private property, from family life, from the unrestricted action of the individual, should seek for a cure of such evil in a complete transformation of society. Men are not just. The city or the state is not a unity, but is split up by factions and strifes of classes. How can such evils be removed save by the state itself, the only power sufficient for the undertaking? Such questions would be asked not so much by men of an ordinary stamp as by those who had strong moral sensibilities and a high ideal of the ends aimed at by life in the world. If such men had a practical spirit and any hope of success, they would become reformers. If they were of another sort, they would construct Utopias.

Plato has left in his "Republic" an image of a state which is intended to set forth the reign of justice in a community. Whether it was to him a mere Utopia, or whether it was something more, has been long made a question. His scholar, Aristotle, treats his means for attaining to the great end of political justice, as if they were to be realized in an actual state. On the other hand, in his "Book of Laws" there is another republic contemplated—one in which the ordinary relations of society are to be protected and defended; in which, on the existing basis, society is to be made as just, pure, and reverential, as laws and institutions can make it. Taking the two works together, we must either say that Plato regarded the picture of a just state which appears in his "Republic" as a mere illustration of the same harmonious action which can be traced in the just individual; or we must say that he regarded his institutions in the "Republic" as desirable in themselves, and saw nothing immoral in them, so long as they conduced to the common good, to the unity and exemption from selfishness in the classes of which his "Republic" consists. That this last explanation is the true one appears from a passage in the "Laws," where he says that the first or best state and the best laws would be formed where "nothing existed that is separate and not common; where wives were common and children and everything that could be used." "Such a state, whether gods or children of gods inhabited it, would be a happy abode." But the state which he is treating of would be next in its immortality, and the first in a second class. So, then, to some degree we must make the genial philosopher responsible, and deserving of Aristotle's severe rebukes.

The state, however, in the "Republic" is not worked out in all its features. The classes are three in number—the rulers, the guards, and the workingmen or artificers and cultivators; answering to the reason, the soul as the seat of courage and feeling, and to desire or the desires. And, as the regular action of each of these departments of the spiritual being insures right conduct or justice, so the right action, unity, and justice of the state is preserved by the orders of society, each fulfilling its part. But Plato, in developing his subject, says very little in regard to the first and the third class. The former would, of course, be small; and its recruits were to be taken from the most trusty among the guards. The third class may, for aught that appears, own property, live in families, and be like the same class in other commonwealths; and if among their children some should show conspicuous ability, they are to be transferred to the class of guards; as also, if there are children of the guards who fall below the qualities proper for that class, they are to be thrust down into the third class, for we sometimes find, says Plato, that a golden father has an iron son.

The guards themselves, whose especial office it is to protect the state from foreign enemies and from domestic seditions, are to have no houses, nor lands, nor anything which they can call their own. The women who are selected to continue the race of the guards are to be wives of no one in particular, but of the whole class; and care is to be taken by the rulers that, when children are born to this or that woman, no one of the guards shall be able to say, This child is mine. All the children belong to all; and thus separate and exclusive relations to wives and children, the causes of disunion in a state, are to be obliterated.

The criticisms of Aristotle on this kind of polity show not only how Plato failed to gain his end; how he would destroy the state by removing differences; and how that in which the greatest numbers share receives the least care from each; but also how abhorrent this scheme was to the Greek mind. That such changes in society could be seriously proposed is to be accounted for by the prevailing Greek view, that the state had nearly unrestricted power; that it was the sovereign, which held the fortunes and destinies of the citizens in its hands. That they had little chance of being accepted may be gathered from the ridicule which they met with from the leading comic poet of Athens.

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Socialism, Communism and Economics

The "Republic" of Plato may have suggested the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, written in Latin, and first published in or earlier than the year 1516, in the first part of the reign of Henry VIII. and before the author had come into political importance. It is, perhaps, to be regarded as a mere dream; for, at the close of the work, it is said by one of the interlocutors: "If, on the first hand, I cannot adhere to all that has been said by Hythlodeus [the discoverer of the Island of Utopia]; on the other, I readily confess that there are among the Utopians many things which I could wish to see established in our cities. I wish this more than I hope for it." The name Utopia, also, meaning no place, seems to point at something outside of the real world, to the imaginary seat of an imaginary republic. Some of his sentiments were either mere fancies or were belied by his conduct afterward. Thus all religions are equally tolerated and equally bound to tolerate one another. Pure deism is the predominant faith; but those who deny the being of God or the immortality of the soul are incapacitated for holding office. This book was printed but a year or so before the first outbreak of the Keformation; yet its author, when he became chancellor, fourteen years afterward, consented to measures of severity against the Protestants.

The Utopia opens with a sad account of the social state of England, which is attributable to the number of non-producers, to the rich who take from the poor, to the idle who prevent the industrious from prospering. To this the speaker who had discovered Utopia replies, that in all states where individual property exists, where everything is measured by money, justice can never reign nor secure the public prosperity. In order to establish a just balance in human affairs, property must be abolished. As long as this right of property lasts, the largest and best class can only bear the burden of unrest, misery, and sorrow. Palliatives for this evil may be found— such as laws fixing a maximum of possessions in land or money; but they cannot remove the evil so long as individual property exists. The sole remedy is community of goods, such as prevails in Utopia.

In this island, separated from the main-land by an artificial channel, there is a capital, with fifty-four other towns, all built on the same plan and calculated for 6,000 families, with many large farm-houses scattered through the country, and able, each, to accommodate at least forty persons. All the inhabitants must work on the farm or in some branch of industry; and, as no one can be idle, a day's work consisting of six hours will suffice for all the wants of the island. Then the rest of the day may be devoted to study in the public colleges, and the evening to recreation.

In the island markets for provisions are established, and public magazines for manufactures. Every head of a family finds there, without cost, all necessary articles. Meals are taken in common. There are also common hospitals and common nurseries, where mothers may nurse their children. Marriage is the law and usage of the land; but the number of children in separate dwellings is equalized, by taking away the excess from one family, and placing them in another.

Money is unknown among the Utopians except as an aid to external intercourse. Nor is travelling into the interior allowed, except by permission of the magistrates; in which case the traveler pays for the conveyance and provisions furnished to him by laboring wherever he stops.

The government is simple. Every thirty families choose a magistrate; every ten of these divisions, a superior magistrate; and a prince is elected by the inferior magistrates out of four candidates proposed by the people. Every town sends three deputies to a legislature, invested with legislative powers and sitting at the capital. The magistrates have it for their principal office to keep people at work. But would the system encourage work or idleness? This important inquiry is proposed in the course of the dialogue, but meets with no sufficient answer.

I have mentioned some of the details of More's plan, because the socialists of the more modern times have seen the same difficulties, and proposed some of the same expedients for their removal. The Utopia may be regarded as written long before the era when social changes were called for with a loud voice, yet as foreseeing the course which such changes would take.

Another ideal reformer, more according to Plato's pattern, Thomas Campanella, flourished about a century after More; his "City of the Sun" having been first published in 1623. This man, a learned philosopher of Italy and a Dominican monk, incurred the jealousy of the Spaniards, and was sentenced, after being put seven times to the rack, to perpetual imprisonment; but was liberated after some twenty-six years of confinement, and spent the end of his life in France. There is little in his communistic scheme that is worthy of notice, and it has had little influence on the minds of men disposed to speculate in that direction. In fact, it has been rescued from oblivion only in comparatively recent times. As another has remarked: "The monastery is the type of the social organization which he extols; the pontifical power and the ecclesiastical hierarchy serve as the basis of the government of his new society." The two main points of his system are community of property and of wives, and a government lodged in the hands of philosophers; in both of which he follows Plato. In regard to the first, he perceives the connection between the abolition of private property and the abolition of the family. He says, in a passage which I borrow from another, that "the spirit of property increases among us only because we have each a house, a wife, and children of our own. Thence comes selfishness, for, in order to raise a son to honors and riches and to make him heir of a great fortune, we dilapidate the public treasure, if we can control others by our wealth and power; or, if we are feeble, poor, and of an obscure family, we become avaricious, perfidious, hypocrites." And, in carrying out this kind of community, he follows Plato in endeavoring to improve the breed of men by measures of government, expressing his astonishment that races of animals should receive attention in this respect, while the race of men is neglected.

Campanella carries his dread of property even beyond the points above spoken of. No one has a fixed abode. Every six months the magistrates determine the district or circle, the house and chamber, which each one is to occupy; apparently, lest there should be any local attachments, any home feeling. All the mechanic arts are common to both sexes. All products are distributed by the magistrates in proportion to each one's needs. As for the amount of these needs, since the inhabitants all take a vow of frugality and poverty, and it is assumed by Campanella that four hours' work daily will be adequate for their supply, they cannot be very great.

The magistrates in this republic are all to be philosophers, according to Plato's noted words, in the "Republic," that until kings become philosophers, or philosophers become kings, there can be no end of evils in political communities. The supreme magistrate is the most eminent philosopher in the City of the Sun, and has the title of the Sun, or the great metaphysician. Under him three magistrates—answering to the three attributes of power, wisdom, and love in the individual man—preside respectively over war, over science, and over industry and the arts. Under these, and chosen by them, there is a great body of officers, distinguished for some kind of knowledge, and chosen by the great metaphysician and his three ministers. They are invested with very great executive powers, with which the religious authority also, even that of holding auricular confession, is united. Thus a thorough despotism, the only government possible in a communistic society, if it can subsist, is established.

Why he should want a religious autocrat for his Utopia we can explain; but his union of the two powers, so contrary to Catholic doctrine, his doctrine of marriage, so un-Christian, and the modicum of freedom provided for his republic, when he suffered so much from despotism himself, make him a rare specimen in the history of philosophers.

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Free eBook: Read This Masterful Account of the Rise of Fascism

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The work of John T. Flynn (1882–1964) is proof that the job of journalist once meant something very serious. As We Go Marching is a work of scholarship by any standard. It is well written, to be sure, but it covers the history and meaning of fascism with fantastic erudition, tracing its permutations from Italy to Germany to the United States.

The passion is not disguised, but it is backed by incredible detail, relentless logic and powerful analytics. It is easy to identify this as Flynn’s greatest work, but actually there is some serious competition for that designation.

Before the New Deal, Flynn thought of himself as a liberal. He was right. And he never changed his mind, either. He was a liberal. He believed in progress, free speech, free inquiry, small government, maximum freedom in every sphere of life. That included the economic sphere. Here is where the crowd that called themselves liberal in the 1930s and ’40s departed from him. Flynn believed the liberalism also meant a free economy. He was an opponent of corporatism, of state intervention, of state-created cartels, of authoritarian rule.
The New Deal was all those things. Flynn shows that it culminated in militarism and war—the New Deal by other means. It was a continuation and not a departure. We were fighting against fascism abroad while imposing it at home. In the end of supporting freedom around the world, the government was taking it away from us at home. In this sense, it is impossible to call Flynn a conservative today. His opposition to war and war socialism was so intense he would never join the “conservatives” in whooping it up for the Cold War. He remained true to his convictions his entire life.

He could not but write and speak the truth. He knew that it would come at a price and it was one he was willing to pay.


It is a marvel that this book was ever published, given the way all governments censor the press during wartime. It did get published—with an advertisement for war bonds on the back cover. At the same time, it meant the end of his career as a writer. He was once nationally famous. After the war, he could hardly find anyone willing to publish his works. He died in obscurity—and this was after an incredible lifetime career of some of the best journalism in American history.

I’ve variously felt a strong sense of sadness for what happened to Flynn. But when you read this book, that sense goes away. He was a man of remarkable courage and brilliance. He could not but write and speak the truth. He knew that it would come at a price and it was one he was willing to pay. And look at his legacy! This book is truth spoken to power, and it speaks still and will continue to do so for generations.

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is a former Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is the Editorial Director at the American Institute for Economic Research, a managing partner of Vellum Capital, the founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, economics adviser to FreeSociety.com, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, an advisor to the blockchain application builder Factom, and author of five books.

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Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media

Climatologist Patrick Michaels gives us a nontechnical and readable exposé of the “myths and facts” surrounding global warming. For skeptics of the mainstream global-warming hypothesis, that is, that dramatic, human-induced warming is occurring and will have cataclysmic effects if not checked by lifestyle-altering public policies, this book is a great read and an indispensable reference.

In chapter after chapter Michaels dissects the myths surrounding this hypothesis. He examines the alarmist claims regarding melting icecaps, extreme weather, species extinction, and more that are familiar to anyone who reads newspapers or watches CNN. This is done after an opening chapter that makes intelligible to the lay reader the basic science behind climate change.

What might surprise some is that Michaels, probably the best-known global-warming skeptic, accepts both the seemingly undeniable fact that the earth is warming and the proposition that it is in part due to human use of fossil fuels. As he states,“[G]lobal warming is real, and human beings have something to do with it.” What separates him from the alarmists is his caveat: “we don’t have everything to do with it; but we can’t stop it, and we couldn’t even slow it down enough to measure our efforts if we tried.”

Yet Michaels denies that the warming will be either dramatic or will have catastrophic consequences. His position is thus more nuanced than his detractors are willing to acknowledge or many of his supporters realize.

Unfortunately, the most important chapter in the book is at the end. After dispelling all the myths about rising sea levels, melting icecaps, and the possible loss of penguins and butterflies, Michaels gets to the organizing theme of the book—namely, how government funding combined with university tenure leads to the distortion of science and bad public policy. Had this story been told at the beginning, the hyperbolizing of scientific claims, exposed throughout the book, would make more sense. Chapter 11 provides the lens through which the earlier chapters should be read. I suggest that readers start with this chapter and then go to the beginning.

By combining Public Choice theory with the ideas of Thomas Kuhn regarding how paradigms take hold in scientific research, Michaels explains why distortions in climate research should have been expected. (Note the subtitle of the book.) The dominant paradigm in the science of climate change includes the idea that “the major cause of recent climate change is the emission of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuel.” Furthermore, scientists and statisticians through “improved quantification . . . will give policy makers . . . guidance on what might be required to slow, stop, or reverse those changes.” Over time, a paradigm can be overthrown, but it must first be widely recognized as failing, and there needs to be a coherent replacement available.

Michaels states the alternative paradigm as follows: “We know, to a very small range of error, the amount of future climate change for the foreseeable future, and it is a modest value to which humans have adapted and will continue to adapt. There is no known, feasible policy that can stop or even slow these changes in a fashion that could be scientifically measured.” Unfortunately it is not until this point (on page 222) that the reader is informed that “this book is about the resistance to this new paradigm.”

Michaels explains how established paradigms, which are rarely challenged by the bulk of a profession, have “lives of their own.” For most academic scientists, receiving tenure requires publishing in accepted peer-reviewed journals.These journals have editors and referees who are steeped in the dominant paradigm. Therefore, publishable research must ask only those questions that are generally accepted within it. Hence,the paradigm is perpetuated.

Layered on top of this is the “federalization of science,” in this case the federal funding of climate-change research. Here is where Public Choice theory enters. It is not in the interest of NASA, DOE, the EPA, and other agencies to fund research that does not accept the dominant paradigm, which, by definition, will perpetuate a need for additional appropriations from Congress. This process stifles both research into and public awareness of the alternative paradigm. Government funding reduces the probability that the dominant paradigm, no matter how inconsistent with real-world data, will be overthrown.

Clearly, Michaels’s book is a must-read for anyone interested in getting the straight facts about global warming. But this book is just as important for those who want to better understand the relationship between scientific research and government funding that lies behind it. Professor Michaels makes it clear that government funding of science can be dangerous to both our liberty and to the advancement of science itself.

Roy Cordato

Roy Cordato is Vice President for Research and resident scholar at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, NC. He is also a part time faculty member at NC State University where he teaches a primarily Austrian course called Political Economy of the Market Process and is faculty advisor for the Austrian Economics Forum made up of graduate and undergraduate students.

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Breed Bans Are Cruel and Don't Even Work

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Some of my favorite people are dogs. Unlike some humans I could mention, a dog has never asked me to borrow money, cut me off in traffic, or used up all the toilet paper in the bathroom without the courtesy of refilling it (or at least warning me by strategically placing the empty cardboard tube on top of the toilet seat).

House Bill 313 will label the following dog breeds as dangerous: Boxer, Akita, Husky, Chow Chow, Great Dane, all four breeds commonly known as pit bulls, etc.


Dogs are great. They’re enthusiastic, warm, and cuddly. They provide comfort, security, and have been shown to have extensive psychological and therapeutic effects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that, among other benefits, the health advantages of keeping pets include decreased blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and feelings of loneliness. Additionally, people who own dogs are likely to live longer on average.

Most of us love these fur-balls, but certain breeds have been so culturally villainized that some people advocate for legislation that bans beloved dog breeds or heavily restricts these dogs’ owners.

When I was growing up, Rottweilers were the evil-dog-flavor-of-the-month. Hollywood and the news media solely depicted them as vicious, snarling beasts, only kept for scaring people and chasing away intruders. These days, Pit Bulls are the canine-non-grata.

Without a doubt, unrestrained aggressive dogs and dog attacks can be a dangerous and serious problem for communities, and need not be taken lightly, but there are numerous problems with the approach and implementation cities and municipalities have taken towards banning and restricting certain dog breeds.

Bully the Breed
A ban can require that all dogs that resemble a “targeted breed” be removed from the jurisdiction or are subject to being killed by animal control.


Over 1,000 US cities and dozens of counties within 36 states have what is known as “breed-specific legislation.” Breed-specific restrictions often require the owners of certain dog breeds to do things like muzzle the dog in public, contain their pets within a kennel that is built to given specifications (e.g., chain link walls and concrete floors), purchase a minimum dollar amount of liability insurance, make the dog wear a “vicious dog” identifier, etc. Local law might include any of these controls or more.

It’s disappointing that my own state of Georgia has proposed similar legislation. If it passes, House Bill 313 will label the following dog breeds as dangerous: Boxer, Akita, Husky, Chow Chow, Rottweiler, Great Dane, Doberman Pinscher, all four breeds commonly known as pit bulls, German Shepherd, and wolf hybrids.

In addition to requiring a “canine that is entirely or partly” one of these breeds to be labeled as dangerous, the legislation mandates that shelters must provide bite statistics to people who are looking to adopt. If approved by the state house, senate, and governor, the bill will go into effect on July 1st, 2017.

What this means is that, not only will some of the most common canines in Georgia be labeled as dangerous, “the proposed bill would burden taxpayers because of DNA testing costs and the fact that shelters will have to provide statistics about dog bites, medical costs related to dog bites and legal damages awarded to dog bite victims.”

Breed bans are even worse, as they can lead to dogs being rounded up and exterminated. A ban can require that all dogs that resemble a “targeted breed” be removed from the jurisdiction or are subject to being killed by animal control. Although, in some cases, grandfather clauses may allow banned breeds to stay if they are registered by a certain date, however, they may still be subject to other restrictions.

Banning and labeling dogs as dangerous has a huge impact on whether or not an abandoned animal will be adopted or euthanized.


As you can imagine, when confronted with a breed ban, many pet owners decide to hide their banned dogs. This leads to negative health consequences for the animals and potential problems for the community because banned dogs will be unable to visit veterinarians and receive rabies shots. Bans also have a negative impact on communities because pit bulls and other banned dogs that work as therapy or search-and-rescue dogs will not be allowed either.

What might be the most troubling is that, in both cases, legislation does not take into account how a dog actually behaves. The time and effort an owner spends on training and raising a “dangerous” dog is rendered useless because even the best-behaved pooches will be seen as unsafe in the eyes of the law. Banning and labeling dogs as dangerous effects where dog owners can live, whether or not they can visit dog parks or veterinarians, and doubtlessly has a huge impact on whether or not an abandoned animal will be adopted or euthanized.

Problems of Identification
One of the biggest problems with both breed-specific restrictions and bans is that it can be very difficult to identify a dog’s breed. Even the naming of dog breeds gets complicated. For example, pit-bull-type dogs might refer to any of the following: the American Pit Bull, American Staffordshire Terrier, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and the American Bully.

Any dog with teeth can bite.


Generally, people are really bad at identifying the breed of a dog based solely on appearance. An animal that appears to be one breed might genetically be labeled as another. According to one study of 120 shelter dogs, staff identified 55 as “pit bulls” but only 25 could be ID’d as such by DNA testing. It’s troubling that, in the case of breed bans, an inability to accurately identify a dog’s breed may lead to local governments killing dogs who only have the appearance of a “dangerous” breed.
Any dog with teeth can bite. A dog’s breed does not necessarily equate to a level of risk for a bite or dog attack. The American Veterinary Medical Association, has stated that “it’s the dog’s behavior, general size, number of dogs involved, and the vulnerability of the person bitten that determines whether or not a dog or dogs will cause a serious bite injury.” The AVMA urges people to learn how to recognize aggressive dog behavior and teach their kids how to interact with dogs and to not rely on stereotypes or breed-specific-legislation to minimize the number of dog bites.

Furthermore, according to the CDC, “There is currently no accurate way to identify the number of dogs of a particular breed, and consequently no measure to determine which breeds are more likely to bite or kill.” They go on to say that there are numerous alternatives to breed-specific policies that are practical and “hold promise for preventing dog bites.”

Man’s Best Scapegoat
Not convinced? Extensive studies have shown that breed-specific-legislation has had almost no effect on stopping dog attacks and a task force report from Maryland concluded that public safety did not improve even after a local municipality spent roughly $250,000 per year to capture and kill banned dogs.

Regarding pit bulls, perhaps because of their muscular, intimidating appearance, because the media over-hypes pit bull attacks, or because these breeds have been used for peoples’ sick entertainment and gambling over dog fights, these mostly-sweet dogs have been given a bad rap.
It’s short-sighted to assume that this kind of legislation will only affect the buying and selling of certain dogs. Once dog breeds are labeled as “dangerous” it makes it very difficult for individuals with these pets to rent apartments and or even visit dog parks. Please, can we stop bullying certain dog breeds and let peaceful dogs lie?

Marianne March

Marianne March is the Social Media Manager at FEE, as well as a contributing author. In 2016, Marianne graduated summa cum laude from Georgia State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Policy with a concentration in Planning and Economic Development and a minor in Economics. Prior to joining FEE, Marianne worked for the Georgia Lions Lighthouse Foundation and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Marianne is passionate about philanthropy, music, and art. In her free time you can find Marianne at a rock concert, sunning by the pool, or listening to a podcast.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Awesome Quotes from Author Michael Crichton

2018 marks ten years since we lost Michael Crichton, one of the most influential authors of the past century. Crichton gave us Jurassic Park, E.R. Westworld, Twister, Coma, The Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, Congo, Disclosure, and Sphere. His genius is showcased in many of the eminently quotable pearls of wisdom from his many books and speeches. Here are only a few of those:

"Entertainment has nothing to do with reality. Entertainment is antithetical to reality."
Jurassic Park

"They just posture and pontificate. Nobody tests. Nobody does field research. Nobody dares to solve the problems-because the solution might contradict your philosophy, and for most people clinging to beliefs is more important than succeeding in the world."
State of Fear

"like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but never get there.… And at the end of your life, your whole existence has that same haphazard quality, too. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day."
Jurassic Park

"I have great respect for the corrosive influence of bias, systematic distortions of thought, the power of rationalization, the guises of self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended consequences."
State of Fear

"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. -MARK TWAIN"
State of Fear

"I've seen a heap of trouble in my life, and most of it never came to pass," Mark Twain is supposed to have said.  At this point in my life, I can only agree.  So many fears have turned out to be untrue or wildly exaggerated that I no longer get so excited about the latest one."

"We live in a world of frightful givens. It is given that you will behave like this, given that you will care about that. No one thinks about the givens. Isn't it amazing? In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought."
Jurassic Park

"Terror can fill any space"
Sphere

"Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done. And if they are smart, they'll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly. This is not a good system for research into those areas of science that affect policy. Even worse, the system works against problem solving. Because if you solve a problem, your funding ends. All that's got to change."
State of Fear

"Montaigne said three hundred years ago, 'Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known."
State of Fear

"The romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature. People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all. They may hold spiritual beliefs about the world around them, they may have a sense of the unity of nature or the aliveness of all things, but they still kill the animals and uproot the plants in order to eat, to live. If they don't, they will die."

"The nasty little apes that call themselves human beings can do nothing except run and hide. For these same apes to imagine they can stabilize this atmosphere is arrogant beyond belief. They can't control the climate."
State of Fear

"Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results."

"The world changes. Ideologues and zealots don't."
State of Fear

"Professor Johnston often said that if you didn't know history, you didn't know anything. You were a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree."
Timeline

"In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all."
State of Fear

"Biography," observed Oscar Wilde, "lends to death a new terror."
Dragon Teeth

"Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all."
The Lost World

"This is precisely the kind of critical turnabout that has always frustrated and infuriated architects. No less a figure than Sir Christopher Wren, writing two hundred years earlier, complained that 'the peoples of London may despise some eyesore until it is demolished, whereupon by magick the replacement is deemed inferior to the former edifice, now eulogized in high and glowing reference.'"
The Great Train Robbery

"It was terribly important that such women should marry. The failure to marry--spinsterhood--implied a kind of dreadful crippling, for it was universally acknowledged that "a woman's true position was that of administratrix, mainspring, guiding star of the home," and if she was unable to perform this function, she became a sort of pitiful social misfit, an oddity."
The Great Train Robbery

"Monster' is a relative term; to a canary, a cat is a monster. We're just used to being the cat."

"Even if you don't believe in any God, you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious."
State of Fear

“If there’s anything worse than a limousine liberal, it’s a Gulfstream environmentalist.”
State of Fear

“And of course we know that social control is best managed through fear.”
State of Fear

“Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.”
State of Fear

"So what you have is a history of ignorant, incompetent, and disastrously intrusive intervention, followed by attempts to repair the intervention, followed by attempts to repair the damage caused by the repairs, as dramatic as any oil spill or toxic dump. Except in this case there is no evil corporation or fossil fuel economy to blame. This disaster was caused by environmentalists charged with protecting the wilderness, who made one dreadful mistake after another and, along the way, proved how little they understood the environment they intended to protect."
State of Fear

"Arguably the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century. DDT was the best agent against mosquitoes, and despite the rhetoric there was nothing anywhere near as good or as safe. Since the ban, two million people a year have died unnecessarily from malaria, mostly children. All together, the ban has caused more than fifty million needless deaths. Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler, ...And the environmental movement pushed hard for it."
"But DDT was a carcinogen."
"No, it wasn't. And everybody knew it at the time of the ban."
"It was unsafe."
"Actually, it was so safe you could eat it. People did just that for two years, in one experiment. After the ban, it was replaced by parathion, which is really unsafe. More than a hundred farm workers died in the months after the DDT ban, because they were unaccustomed to handling really toxic pesticides."
"We disagree about all this."
"Only because you lack the relevant facts, or are unwilling to face up to the consequences of the actions of organizations you support. Banning DDT will someday be seen as a scandalous blunder." "DDT was never banned."
"You're right. Countries were just told that if they used it, they wouldn't get foreign aid." Kenner shook his head. "But the unarguable point, based on UN statistics, is that before the DDT ban, malaria had become almost a minor illness. Fifty thousand deaths a year worldwide. A few years later, it was once again a global scourge. Fifty million people have died since the ban...Once again, there can be no action without harm."
State of Fear

“civilization doesn’t separate us from nature...Civilization protects us from nature.
State of Fear

"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world."

"This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right."

"We need to get environmentalism out of the sphere of religion. We need to stop the mythic fantasies, and we need to stop the doomsday predictions. We need to start doing hard science instead."

"There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago? When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden?"

"Let's be clear: all professions look bad in the movies. And there's a good reason for this. Movies don't portray career paths, they conscript interesting lifestyles to serve a plot. So lawyers are all unscrupulous and doctors are all uncaring. Psychiatrists are all crazy, and politicians are all corrupt. All cops are psychopaths, and all businessmen are crooks. Even moviemakers come off badly: directors are megalomaniacs, actors are spoiled brats. Since all occupations are portrayed negatively, why expect scientists to be treated differently?"

13 Essential Books to Shape the Libertarian Worldview

See also 500 Books on 2 DVDROMs for Libertarians and Objectivists

For a list of all of my disks and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

There are books that every libertarian should read and books every libertarian has read, but those circles don’t perfectly overlap. Here are 13 diverse book recommendations for well-rounded thinkers.
Economic Sophisms – Frederic Bastiat

The great French liberal and economist Frederic Bastiat is best known for his pamphlet The Law — a scathing indictment of the threat that socialism poses to justice and the rule of law. But he produced another great work in Economic Sophisms, a collection of essays meticulously exposing and ridiculing the economic fallacies committed by his fellow deputies in the French National Assembly.
Sophisms includes his satirical “Petition From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns…and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting” to the French legislature, asking for the government to blot out unfair foreign competition from a cheaper source of light — the sun.
Ahead of his time in many fields, he ruthlessly demolished fallacious arguments for protectionism, socialism, and redistribution with wit, humor, and incisive analysis.

Basic Economics + Applied Economics – Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics is one of the clearest introductions to the economic way of thinking and how it can be applied to a vast number of real world problems. Don’t be intimidated by its brick-like dimensions — it’s written with common sense and plain English. It’s highly readable and easy to digest in pieces, if you don’t finish it off in one sitting. If you get to the end and want more, don’t worry — you can continue “thinking beyond stage one” with Sowell’s Applied Economics.

Beyond Politics: The Roots of Government Failure – Randy Simmons
Public Choice is the most important branch of economics for understanding how and why governments work the way they do. Public Choice is essentially the science of political skepticism: using economic analysis to examine how the incentives of democracy guide the decision making of politicians, bureaucrats, voters, and special interests.

Randy Simmons’ Beyond Politics is the best and most accessible survey of Public Choice, explaining in clear and concrete terms just what things government cannot do — and what the consequences are when it tries to do them anyway.

The Problem of Political Authority – Michael Huemer
In this text, philosopher Michael Huemer exposes the shaky foundations of the most basic premises of government. Carefully tracing the implications of basic moral tenets that nearly everyone accepts, Huemer shows that the authority of the state is a chimera: there is no way to get from the ethical rules that govern how individuals should treat each other to a system that empowers a few people — “the state” — with the privileged moral position to issue coercive commands, while imposing on everyone else the moral duty to obey them. Huemer throws down the gauntlet and challenges the very notion of political authority — and with it, the special standard to which government actions are held.

The Myth of the Rational Voter – Bryan Caplan
The biggest reason why democracies choose bad policies is not selfishness, corruption, or lobbyists — it’s the voters themselves. Bryan Caplan documents the overwhelming empirical evidence that voters are not just ignorant about the most basic aspects of law, government, and economics, but they are also actively irrational in their preferences. In other words, voters are not just wrong but passionately and systematically wrong.

Worse, Caplan shows that these problems are inherent to the democratic system: voters have no incentive to be rational, well-informed, or coolheaded, and politicians have every reason to stoke prejudice and exploit voters’ ignorance. Limiting the scope of democratic power is the only sure way to limit the damage irrational voters can do.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments – Adam Smith
Everyone knows Adam Smith’s magisterial work The Wealth of Nations, but his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is essential for laying the ethical, psychological, and sociological groundwork for his later work in economics and philosophy. Today, Adam Smith is frequently demonized as the patron saint of greed and selfishness, but Moral Sentiments shows that Smith had a nuanced and deep understanding of human nature, our drives for virtue and vice, and the spirit and sympathies that help human beings thrive.

This book, published in 1759, was vastly ahead of its time in many fields, foreshadowing later developments in social science, moral philosophy, and social psychology. But it is also packed with deep and practical insights for any student of human nature. If you find Smith a little too daunting on the first attempt, Russ Roberts’ How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life is a short and friendly introduction to some of the insights in Moral Sentiments.

The God of the Machine – Isabel Paterson
First published in 1943, The God of the Machine was one of four books that emerged in the depths of World War II — along with Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, and Rose Wilder Lane’s The Discovery of Freedom — that launched the modern libertarian movement and helped turn the intellectual tide against collectivism.

At a time when socialism and fascism were conquering whole continents, Paterson set out a defense of individualism, the free market, and limited government that remains powerful and timely to this day. By tracing the role of individual freedom in the rise and fall of civilizations, the book re-centered the discussion of human history on its true subject: the individual.

No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority – Lysander Spooner
Legal theorist Lysander Spooner wrote this devastating critique of the U.S. Constitution in 1867. It remains one of the most thoughtful and hard-hitting criticisms of the American government and federal power. Spooner illustrates why the Constitution can carry no binding authority as a “contract” among “we the people.” At most, he argued, it could only bind and apply to the people who were actually alive at the time of its adoption, and then only to those who explicitly consented to its adoption. Therefore, breaking away from the union of states is “no treason.”

No Treason is also one of the most quotable individualist anarchist works. Any anarchist worth his or her salt knows by heart Spooner’s concise indictment of the Constitution: “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”

Radicals for Capitalism – Brian Doherty
Radicals for Capitalism is a weighty tome, summarizing centuries of classical liberal and libertarian history in one book. Reason magazine senior editor Brian Doherty goes to great lengths to capture the varying influences and factions within the broader libertarian movement. This book is an essential part of any collection on American political history, and friends of liberty will find a lot to learn and enjoy in its eyewitness histories and firsthand accounts of the motley crew that created and compose the modern American libertarian movement.

Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville came to the United States to study prisons for the French government, but he ended up making his most important contributions by studying America’s free society in action. De Toqueville toured the country for nine months, observing how U.S. political, economic, religious, and social institutions worked together to foster human cooperation, and how that process of cooperation led to a thriving social order.

As Daniel J. D’Amico explains, “America’s early and rapid rate of economic development and its functioning social order resulted from a life spring of vibrant civil society. Families, clubs, churches, and various community groups provided early Americans with diverse opportunities to practice the art of association.”

The text, first published in 1835, endures as an influential and insightful account of American society and culture — it has been called the best book ever written about America — but more importantly, it describes the principles underlying social order itself. “In democratic countries the science of association is the mother science,” De Tocqueville wrote, “the progress of all the others depends on the progress of that one.”

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – Robert Heinlein
This novel explores a futuristic society in which a lunar colony revolts against rule from Earth. It is widely regarded as one of the best science fiction novels of all time, but its compelling portrait of a dystopian future and discussion of libertarian ideas make it an essential part of a libertarian bookshelf. Characters in the book range in their politics from self-proclaimed anarchist to would-be authoritarian, and the novel touches on libertarian themes such as spontaneous order, natural law, and individualism. Harsh Mistress would go on to win various awards, including the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“The days rolled by in the camp — they were over before you could say ‘knife.’ But the years, they never rolled by; they never moved by a second.”

In this short novel, Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn lays out — in brutal detail — an ordinary day in the life of one prisoner held in Stalin’s Siberian gulags: the bitter cold, the pervasive hunger, the savage punishments, the powerlessness, despair, and fear. Solzhenitsyn himself spent ten years in the gulag for insulting Stalin, and his own personal experience sharpens the story with heartbreaking detail. Tens of millions were churned through the gulags and slave labor camps in the Soviet Union; more than one million people would die there. Ivan Denisovich helps to humanize an ocean of terror and human suffering that all too easily blurs into a pile of statistics.

This piece ran at the LearnLiberty Blog

Daniel Bier

Daniel Bier is the executive editor of The Skeptical Libertarian.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.