Everybody in America who ever wanted a powerful government to do good should now be happy, for he got his wish. Too bad for half the voters who have different conceptions of the good—their personal good or the “social good”!
A government powerful enough to do good is also powerful enough to do bad. A government powerful enough to decide under what conditions its subjects may trade is powerful enough to seriously disturb or ban their trading, internationally or domestically. A government powerful enough to financially support universities is also powerful enough to threaten them with penalties if they don’t repress opinions it does not like. A ruler powerful enough to define emergencies is powerful enough to increase his power by inventing them. A government powerful enough to require conformity to an ideology, say DEI, is powerful enough to forbid private institutions to embrace it or part of it. A government powerful enough to ship non-citizens to a barbaric prison in El Salvador without due process is probably powerful enough to do the same to its own citizens. And so forth.
On the last point, note what Donald Trump said (“El Salvador’s Bukele Says He Doesn’t Have Power to Return Mistakenly Deported Man,” Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2025):
Trump also said he would be open to deporting U.S. citizens to the [El Savador Cecot] prison “if they’re criminals,” which legal experts say would be unconstitutional. Trump said he asked [Attorney General Pam] Bondi to look into the legal implications of such a move.
“Homegrowns are next,” he told [El Salvador president Nayib] Bukele, referring to American criminals. “You gotta build about five more places.” Bukele replied “We’ve got space.”
Limits to government as conceived by James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and the school of Constitutional Political Economy are precisely meant to prevent the state from growing into Leviathan. Friedrich Hayek’s more tradition-based theory also proposes strict limits. In fact, constraining the state represents the thrust of the whole classical liberal and libertarian tradition. The numerous congressmen, presidents, and (yes) judges who have forgotten that tradition should now realize how important it is.
The game is not over, and we can still entertain some hope. But in the current circumstances, when personal loyalty and fealty replace respect for constitutional rules in the highest reaches of government, we can probably count only on judges, independent institutions, and state governments, not on federal politicians nor rationally ignorant voters. Public opinion can move quickly, though, and the midterms, which usually go against the incumbent party, could help. Many individual Americans retain a sense of individual liberty, many government employees show personal integrity, and a free press can counterbalance official propaganda. Yet, in modern societies, despotism often happens gradually: most people realize that they are living under an elected despot once he is already entrenched. (See “You Didn’t See It Coming,” my review of Cass Sunstein (Ed.), Can It Happen Here? in the Winter 2018-2019 issue of Regulation, pp. 54-57.)
In the Sunstein book just cited, Tyler Cowen argues that dictatorship is unlikely in America because its federal government is too “large and unwieldy.” It is too big to be controlled by anyone: “Big government is useful precisely for (among other reasons) helping to keep government relatively small” (Cowen’s emphasis). This apparent paradox may be deflated by the experiment that is currently going on in America: it may show that such a government can be taken over by a bully with no ideology, no respect for prevalent rules, and no compunction about using and threatening to use the brute force of government. We should soon see if what remains of classical-liberal institutions can stop Leviathan. (Distressingly, Anthony de Jasay believed, contrary to Buchanan or Hayek, that limited government is impossible.)
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The government you wished for, by ChatGPT (asked to illustrate this specific post)
READER COMMENTS
Peter
Apr 18 2025 at 12:30pm
While I agree with your overall point, I clutch my pearls less. Trump isn’t doing anything that past presidents haven’t done, they just didn’t hype them so it didn’t become a wedge issue.
US states already “deport” their citizens to be imprisoned in other states (co-sovereigns) to serve their incarceration as those other states are either cheaper, have weaker due process , or have more draconian prisons which allow the originating state to punish them extra in ways they could never get away with locally in their own state. There is no difference here, the US simply outsourcing it’s prisons to a fellow sovereign, El Salvador.
Likewise the US already refuses to let US nationals and citizens return to America, the US has ALWAYS conspicuously refused to honor the right of return even though we ratified the UN treaty on it. Equally Presidents have long ordered the execution of Americans without due process via political whim both domestically and foreignally (?sp), nothing new there either. Remember when Clinton had Reno light a house full of kids in Texas on fire or when Obama ordered execution of that American kid on foreign vacation to see his dad because we didn’t like his politics? Oh wait, Trump did the very same thing again to his other son too the very next term so I guess that was ok.
Finally the US going back to at least Clinton has kidnapped Americans and sent them off to foreign intelligence sires where we outsource their torture, it was been proven Americans and innocents have been caught up in the extraordinary renditioning program which got its spotlight during Bush, unfairly I will say given Clinton created it, but for all it’s public drama at the time, guess what, it’s still in existence which goes to show why politicians don’t care about the outage of the day, because you can placate the people without actual changing the offending laws or policy by simply pretending you will quit doing it for awhile.
I find this entire Trump drama over using long standing and accepted government processes amusing as it’s fundamentally not
being upset about the substance but the fact a faux pas was committed by talking about it in the open for once. Basically Stalin is laughing from his grave about “Western” statistics where once isn’t a tragedy but millions are. No, once is a tragedy, millions are just desserts to the public who supported and enabled tragedies 2 … 999,999. Trump is finally letting people eat their cake, not sure why all the gnashing of teeth, bakers should be proud of their product and finally being able to enjoy it.
We waded into the Rubicon long ago with drug war putting us into sight of the distant shore and 9/11 moving us well across the middle. The best we can hope for now is the embankment is wide enough that we will be dead if old safe before it is fully breached. There is no going back at this point IMHO as we started this march in 1861, it’s what “Americans” want.
Craig
Apr 18 2025 at 5:00pm
I didn’t realize states did that with respect to prisoners.
Peter
Apr 18 2025 at 7:48pm
I’m not sure how common it is but my state definitely does; we send them to Arizona. It’s been challenged in the courts numerous times on various grounds but the state supreme court uniformly and unanimous always sides with the state, surprise surprise.
steve
Apr 18 2025 at 8:38pm
Good thing David did his thing on whataboutism yesterday as that is what you are engaging in here. Trying awfully hard to find a time or two when someone else, preferably a Democrat, did something similar to avoid ackowledging what is going on now is different and wrong. Yup, other presidents passed tariffs, but in the modern era no one did anything close to this scale. Yes, Clinton ordered some people, foreign nationals, to be sent to other nations. However, it was nothing like what was done under Bush in numbers or in the way it was done with lack of judicial involvement. (I followed the torture issue pretty closely and am unaware of Clinton ordering an American to be rendered so if you have a link would be interested.)
Also, do you have a link to the Clinton order for setting the house on fire? I dont remember anyone ordering that. Also, I find it hard to believe that you really think there is no difference between being jailed in different states vs different countries. I live close tot he borders of NY and NJ. Nothing much changes when I cross the border. Very different going to Latin America.
Steve
Pierre Lemieux
Apr 19 2025 at 12:30am
Steve: I agree. Even if everything is a matter of degree, it would make no sense to say, for example, that the US government was (or is) as authoritarian as the Kremlin. Some degrees are clearly more supportive of liberty, the rule of law, and prosperity than others. Exaggerating a bit, I suspect that if Trump literally started to shoot people on Fifth Avenue (as he boasted he could do without losing his faithful supporters), some people would reply with a “but Biden,” say something like, “but Biden’s sons purchased a revolver!”
Warren Platts
Apr 18 2025 at 3:11pm
Pierre, Trump and the DOGE team are trying to reduce the size of the government. Just the other day he removed a federal regulation that dictated what kind of showerhead you could buy, for Pete’s sake.
I know you economists are allergic to tariffs. But you should think of them as just another tax, no different from corporate income taxes, personal income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, gasoline taxes, etc. It’s not clear to me that the deadweight losses associated with tariffs are any worse than any of these other taxes.
I think the real complaint about tariffs that makes them so pernicious is that tariffs are somehow morally unfair, but the other taxes listed above are not. But I don’t see why that is the case. I have to pay a 6% sales tax here in Pennsylvania. And if I trade with someone from Kansas, I still have to pay that tax. That’s unfair! We should be like New Hampshire that places no restrictions on interstate trade!
As for the tariffs on the Marxist-Leninist Empire, they are literally preparing to fight WWIII with us. It’s not our job to help their economy.
Pierre Lemieux
Apr 19 2025 at 12:35am
Warren: You pay the same sales tax on goods produced in Pennsylvania or imported from California.
Warren Platts
Apr 19 2025 at 3:26am
Right. But the seller in California doesn’t have to pay the California sales tax. That’s an export subsidy! That’s unfair! My point is, if fairness is the real issue, then let’s be frank about it. Personally, I think business is business. Like Trump, you get away with what you can.. I don’t understand why tariffs are more unfair than, say, corporate income taxes. Both taxes raise prices for Home consumers.
Pierre Lemieux
Apr 19 2025 at 11:28am
Warren: With due respect, I think that if you were not glued to your leader or your tribe, you would understand what a sales tax is and what a subsidy is. Your first sentence is nonsensical. Or perhaps it is more difficult to understand for a non-economist than I think. I will try to write on this topic soon, either here or in Regulation, with simple numerical examples. In the meantime, if you ask Google or ChatGPT, you will find a large number of exposés on the web: but read economists, not astrologers or politicians.
Craig
Apr 20 2025 at 10:59am
I think I might be able to help here a little bit on this one since I have a fair amount of experience selling interstate and internationally as well.
Let’s say I sell widget X from NJ. If Pierre came into my workshop and he purchased an item subject to sales tax (many items I sold were NOT subject to sales tax but different topic), I would collect NJ sales tax and I’d have to remit that to the state. Now let’s say that I ship widget X to his state of residence in Maine, at that point I no longer have an obligation to collect NJ sales tax. In this day and age the issue would then be whether I would have to collect sales tax in Maine and with respect to me that answer is usually no though many of the platforms that I use like ebay or shopify will actually do that. Notwithstanding sales tax has a cousin called use tax and while it isn’t heavily enforced in theory if nobody imposes sales tax on him, in theory that likely would trigger the duty to pay ‘use tax’ a tax which usually gets imposed for things people can’t hide, like cars. Now let’s turn to a foreign vendor. If a foreign vendor in Italy sells an item to a person in Italy, that person will have to pay VAT, sometimes a relatively large amount I might add. If widget X is exported to NJ, that item will not be subject to VAT, if I am importing it for resale I myself will not have to pay sales tax, but likewise Pierre will have to pay sales tax if purchasing from me. If Pierre is buying the item directly, he should not have to pay VAT but again he is theoretically supposed to pay use tax on the item.
So if I sell widget X to Pierre in NJ for $100 I will charge $107 (I think its 7% still in NJ), if Pierre were to buy widget X in Italy he’ll pay $120 (I think its 20% VAT). if he imported the item to NJ he’d pay $100 because it would be VAT exempt, but in theory he’s supposed to pay the $7 in use tax. Naturally assuming item sold subject to sales tax in NJ.
Warren Platts
Apr 20 2025 at 2:55pm
Pierre: Sorry, I was being facetious. However, I do want to know why tariffs are fundamentally worse than practically any other tax. I don’t understand that.
Craig: Say you export widget X to a person in Italy and your price is $100. Your customer would wind up paying $120, $100 to you and $20 for the VAT. But let’s say Italy had a 20% tariff instead of a 20% VAT. For your practical purposes, it’s the same right? Yet the VAT is OK, yet the tariff is not. Also, as you note, a 20% VAT or tariff is pretty steep and bound to cut into your sales. Thus would you consider a lowering of price, to say $90 in order make up the difference on volume? I’ve noticed a historical pattern: as the world became globalized and everybody removed or lowered their tariffs, practically all of them instituted fat VATs. USA is about the sole exception. So if Trump instituted a 10% VAT instead of a 10% across-the-board tariff, I guess no one should have an objection against that, right?
Ahmed Fares
Apr 18 2025 at 3:59pm
Well, maybe not judges.
Terrifying reason judges across the US are receiving unexpected pizza deliveries amid war with Trump
Ahmed Fares
Apr 18 2025 at 4:04pm
Another source:
Amy Coney Barrett’s Family Had Strange Pizzas Sent to Their Homes
Craig
Apr 18 2025 at 4:53pm
“we can probably count only on judges”
Yeah, the lawyers who couldn’t figure out how to make any real money in the private sector? 😉
The Cold Civil War is playing out as lawfare. I wouldn’t count on the impartiality of any judge at this point.
David Seltzer
Apr 18 2025 at 5:33pm
Pierre: There are voices wandering in from the wilderness. Yours and those who comment on various libertarian blogs. This morning, Don Boudreaux wrote a pointed op-ed piece on Fox News, explaining the pernicious effects of DJT’s tariffs. Fair play to Fox as they are often apologists for Mr. Trump. Media across the political spectrum have covered and criticized his impulsive and unpredictable “policies.” My hope; the rationally ignorant won’t have to do a costly information search regarding Mr. Trump as he conducts his unscrupulous behavior in the open. As you referenced, the midterms, November 3, 2026, offer some hope of gridlock.
Warren Platts
Apr 18 2025 at 11:34pm
Dr. Boudreaux was complaining about the stock market correction. You should know there are some very big foreign sovereign wealth funds that are heavily invested in the U.S. stock market, including from China. I just saw today Chairman Xi has banned Chinese billionaires from investing in the U.S. So the Chinese sovereign wealth fund probably pulled out entirely. That in itself would be enough to crash the market temporarily. In other words, the decline was quite likely the result of market manipulation on the part of foreign sovereign wealth funds in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs, and not because the smart money foresees permanent damage to the economy.
Monte
Apr 18 2025 at 8:07pm
The other half of voters wanted a powerful government, too, they just wanted a different authoritarian at the helm. Small government Libertarians and other like-minded individuals only make up about 20% of the voting public, no?
Pierre Lemieux
Apr 19 2025 at 12:19am
Monte: I agree with your first sentence. My “you” mainly addressed Democrats, who are now crying wolf after feeding the current wolf since around 1900. But both parties did it. I don’t know how many libertarian-leaning voters there are in America, but they are not very visible and probably rationally ignorant of politics.
Monte
Apr 19 2025 at 4:40am
Amen, Pierre. Truth and liberty are (to borrow from Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb song), a distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
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