Economists can use their knowledge for both good and evil, and for those in government, such knowledge is often used to deceive and make government programs look less costly than they are, writes Gary Galles.
This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Keith Hocker.
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Why More Secession Means Lower Taxes and More Trade
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[This article is Chapter 9 of Breaking Away: The Case of Secession, Radical Decentralization, and Smaller Polities.]
When we hear of political movements in favor of decentralization and secession, the word “nationalist” is often used to describe them. We have seen the word used in both the Scottish and Catalonian secession movements, and in the case of Brexit. Often the term is intended to be pejorative.
When used pejoratively—as by the critics of Brexit—the implication is that the separatists seek to exit a larger political entity for the purposes of increasing isolation, throwing up greater barriers to trade, and pursuing a more autarkic economic policy. In other words, we’re supposed to believe that efforts at decentralizing political systems leads to states becoming more oppressive and
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