Pro-free enterprise does not mean pro-business

Deirdre McCloskey on the the causes of The Great Enrichment

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The role of job sorting and job matching in constitutional political economy

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Mencken on the two party system in a democracy

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What is the precariat?

With the withering away of the proletariat because of the great enrichment, the Left over Left coined the word precariat.

The precariat is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity: a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare as well as being a member of a proletariat class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labour to live. Specifically, it is applied to the condition of lack of job security, in other words intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence. The term is a portmanteau obtained by merging precarious with proletariat.

Very similar to the Karl Marx’s Lumpenproletariat: the layer of the working class that is unlikely ever to achieve class consciousness and is therefore lost to socially useful production, of no use to the revolutionary struggle, and perhaps even an impediment to the realization of a classless society.

One of the drawbacks of the precariat is they are inconveniently happier than Left over Left are willing to give them credit. For example, a lot of women in part-time jobs are happier than those in full-time jobs because of the greater worklife balance. Casual and seasonal jobs pay more too.

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When is it the right time for a tax cut?

I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.  - Milton Friedman

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Socialism did not have its origins in the working class

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What if Scotland votes for independence on 18 September 2014

Draft bill for passage under urgency by the Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

(1)On and after 20th September 2014 (” the appointed day “) Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom shall have no responsibility for the government of Scotland.

(2)No Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed on or after the appointed day shall extend, or be deemed to extend, to Scotland.

(3)On and after the appointed day the British Nationality Acts shall have effect as if in section 1(3) of the British Nationality Act 1948 (Commonwealth countries having separate citizenship) there were added at the end the words

“and Scotland”.

(4)Except as provided by section 3 of this Act, any person who immediately before the appointed day is a citizen of the United Kingdom shall on that day cease to be such a citizen if he becomes on that day a citizen of Scotland.

(5) The Union with Scotland Act 1706  is repealed on the appointed day .

(6) On and after  the appointed day, no one may be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a Scottish peerage.

(7) On the appointed day, members of the House of Commons representing Scottish constituencies shall vacate their seats and the Scottish constituencies in the House of Commons are abolished.

Charles de Gaulle had a simple option for nationalists in the French colonies in 1958. Hold a referendum on remaining with France and elect members of Parliament to Paris  on equal terms with metropolitan French or you can have immediate full independence.

You are one of us or you are on your own. After the Guinean constitutional referendum in 1958 voted for independence on 28 September 1958 and its declaration of independence on 2 October 1958, the French left within the week and cut off all development assistance.

Independence is independence, and the Scots should get what they voted for good and hard. The sooner, the better. Why should Scottish independence cost the British taxpayer one pound.

Nationalists are are greedy lot who expect their former metropolitan power to still pay their bills and not resent rejection.

The demonstrably strong support of the working classes everywhere for capitalism

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Seeing like the state

It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.  - Adam Smith

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Deirdre McCloskey – Equality vs. Lifting Up the Poor

HT: deirdremccloskey via cafehayek

The Industrial Revolution started when people stopped looking at innovation as a reason for a witch-hunt

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Mike Munger paraphrases Hayek’s fatal conceit

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The blame everybody else sociology of the vision of the anointed – Thomas Sowell

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Moral and other philosophical values had to be given greater consideration in economic analysis

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