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“From 1792 until 1928, federal government spending remained relatively stable at about two-and-a-half percent of all spending in the economy. But when Franklin Roosevelt became President in the early 1930s, the data reveal a fundamental change in the size and scope of government. Government spending, which had remained steady for more than 130 years, began to grow from less than 3 percent of the economy prior to 1928, to 10 percent in the 1930s, to 17 percent in the 1950s, then to 22 percent today.”

Quote by Antony Davies

Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics

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Antony Davies

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“The Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that most workers move out of minimum wage jobs quickly, and that they are very unlikely to return to them. Of workers who start out at the minimum wage, 46 percent move on to earn more than the minimum within one year. Of workers still earning the minimum wage in their second year of work, 55 percent graduate to higher wages by their third year. This pattern continues, so that for every 100 workers who start their careers at the minimum wage, five years later only three are still earning the minimum wage – the other 97 have moved on to higher paying jobs. And this accounts for the few workers who slip back into the minimum wage after earning more.”

GovernmentPoliticsSocietyEconomics
Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“What we can be sure of is that the gun debate is a boon for politicians on both sides of the aisle. Whether they are pro- or anti-gun, politicians get to use this emotionally charged issue in their bids for office. And they need never fear that the issue will go away because data suggest that the solution they debate – restricting access to guns – has no effect one way or the other. The short, but real lesson here is that even when we commit to using the powerful tool of coercion, even when we are convinced its use is utterly warranted, we might not get anything resembling the results we intended. Coercion is not a magic wand, it is simply a tool. If there is actually no effect one way or the other, as the data indicate here, the only effect coercion achieves is to limit people’s freedom. Where gun violence is concerned, coercion is simply not the correct tool for the job, and emotive posturing will never change that.”

GovernmentPoliticsSocietyEconomics
Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“When government limits its force only to preventing people from imposing harm on each other, people have the maximum ability to cooperate. It is from cooperation, not coercion, that human society flourishes.”

GovernmentPoliticsSocietyEconomics
Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“People attribute almost magical powers to government because they clearly see the outcomes they want to attain - more jobs, less crime, better education - and they clearly see that government has the power to coerce. People imagine that, to achieve X or to prevent Y, all one need do is to pass a law requiring people to do X or prohibiting them from doing Y. The false assumption is that people respond to laws. They don’t. They respond to incentives. And all the people involved - from the voters who elect politicians, to the politicians who craft laws, to the bureaucrats who implement the laws - seek to maximize their happiness.”

GovernmentPoliticsSocietyEconomics
Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“To put mass shootings in perspective, 1,600 times the number of Americans are killed annually on roads as in mass shootings. Of course, one is often the result of human error or inattention, while the other is almost always the result of a deranged mind. But in the end, a life lost is just that: a life lost. Further, the number of gun-related suicides dwarfs the number of gun-related mass killings. There were almost 300,000 gun-related suicides from 2000 through 2015, for an average of more than 18,500 per year. This might well be a problem, but it is surely not the problem that anyone is talking about when they refer to the “epidemic of gun violence.” We react to sensationalistic media coverage of the events that claim the fewest lives, by definition diverting our attention from those that claim the most.”

GovernmentPoliticsSocietyEconomics
Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“These mass shootings resulted in 547 deaths over 27 years, for an average of 20 per year. You would never know this by watching television. While these sorts of mass shootings have remained remarkably constant over the years, media coverage of them has skyrocketed. Why? Because the media sells advertising, not news. And violence sells. We don’t have an epidemic of mass shootings, we have an epidemic of opportunism. How do you know? Because statistics on gun violence tend to get less attention than do anecdotes about gun violence.”

GovernmentPoliticsSocietyEconomics
Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“The faith that people unthinkingly place in government and its ability to accomplish any number of important goals is at the same time a faith in the people who work in government, so-called public servants. If we contend that only government can accomplish certain things, then we are, by definition, asserting that the people who work in government are somehow more knowledgeable, more capable, more well-intentioned, or more motivated than their counterparts outside of government.”

GovernmentPoliticsSocietyEconomics
Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“The federal government started requiring seat belts as standard equipment in automobiles in 1968, and in the years that followed, 49 states have mandated seat belt use for all or some of the occupants of moving automobiles. During that period, motor vehicle fatalities have, in fact, decreased, and it seems pretty clear that seatbelt use is responsible at least for some of the decline. But there is more to the story. Seatbelt use protects people inside the cars. But it does little for people outside the cars. As seatbelt use rose, driving became safer. As driving became safer, the cost to drivers of being inattentive fell. And as the cost of being inattentive fell, drivers could afford to exercise less care.”

GovernmentPoliticsSocietyEconomics
Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“Natural rights are rights people have by virtue of their humanity. Because natural rights arise from our nature as humans, they precede governments and they render humans fundamentally equal. When governments enact laws to treat people equally under the law, they are not bestowing equality. They are protecting the innate equality that exists regardless of whether particular governments choose to respect it.”

GovernmentPoliticsSocietyEconomics
Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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