Beware big government

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AGAINST LEVIATHAN: GOVERNMENT POWER AND A FREE SOCIETY

By Robert Higgs

The Independent Institute, $29.95, 424 pages

The era of big government is over, famously proclaimed President Bill Clinton. Alas, a decade later Leviathan is still with us, an ever-present threat to our liberties. In "Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society," Robert Higgs collects earlier essays presenting the case against expansive government meddling in a free society.

"What should we call the vast hodgepodge of statutes, regulations, court rulings, government bureaus, police departments, law courts, military organizations, and assorted authoritative busybodies under whose weight we Americans are now suffering?" Mr. Higgs asks. He, like the famous political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, chooses Leviathan. "Unlike Hobbes, however," notes Mr. Higgs dryly, "I do not recommend that beast."

Mr. Higgs boils the case against Leviathan down to fraud: "government is not what it claims to be (competent, protective, and just), and it is what it claims not to be (bungling, menacing, and unjust)." This deceit is compounded by the fact that "The one thing it will not do is simply leave us alone."

Moreover, he challenges the foundation of the welfare state: income redistribution. Arguments over income distribution center around how much wealth the various quintiles of the population possess. But "these figures are virtually worthless," Mr. Higgs argues.

Indeed, more equality isn't necessarily better. Politicians usually rely on tax-and-spend politics. Mr. Higgs points to 19 "neglected consequences" of such a strategy. For instance, higher taxes discourage productive activity; transfers encourage beneficiaries to be dependent and discourage them from working. Charitable involvement diminishes. Liberty suffers.

Indeed, Mr. Higgs argues: "Ironically, in the full-fledged transfer society, where governments busy themselves redistributing income by means of hundreds of distinct programs, hardly anyone is better off as a result." Only those doing the transferring, that is, those in government, tend to be unambiguous beneficiaries.