The Shutdown and Liberty . . .

[redcliffsw]

Back in 1961, a then-unknown economist named Murray Rothbard wrote an article for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). It was published in an annual collection that FEE released: Essays in Liberty. Its title: "Statistics: Achilles' Heel of Government." It is posted here. It was one of the finest articles Rothbard ever wrote. It was important for two reasons. First, it attacked an area of government expenditure that was almost universally accepted as legitimate in 1961. (Sadly, it is equally accepted today.) He was making a point: sometimes things the government does that seem to be beneficial are in fact threats to liberty. Second, he made the point that the statistics are used for the purposes of government control. He wrote: "Statistics are the eyes and ears of the bureaucrat, the politician, the socialistic reformer. Only by statistics can they know, or at least have any idea about, what is going on in the economy."

The statistics-gathering agencies are easy targets for cutbacks. The voters will not miss them. Meanwhile, nobody in Washington understands the centrality of statistics collection today. It is not economically relevant. But it is highly relevant with respect to producing the fig leaf that provides the illusion of scientific central planning. The sooner that this illusion comes to an end, the better for liberty.
-Gary North

Read on:
https://www.garynorth.com/public/19065.cfm