{"id":14804,"date":"2011-07-15T07:32:51","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T14:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=14804"},"modified":"2011-07-15T07:34:32","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T14:34:32","slug":"a-poverty-of-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/14804\/a-poverty-of-imagination\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poverty of Imagination"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the sad things about the modern welfare state – which I’d date to about World War I and really got underway with the New Deal – is that it’s caused a poverty of imagination. People can’t imagine what the world would be like without this or that government regulation or this or that government program.<\/p>\n

For instance, I gently suggested below that three years of law school<\/a> is a waste of time – and, in fact, most other common law countries don’t require it, and don’t seem to be imploding. I also suggested that maybe some rules should be loosened.<\/p>\n

You merely need to look at the comments section of that post to see the handwringing about what would befall our great civilization if there were under-educated or incompetent lawyers!<\/p>\n

This is what I meant when I said that people prefer security over freedom. You’d think, by suggesting that three year law schools (which have only been in existence since the 1930s or so) should be done away with, I was suggesting a return to the dark ages,<\/p>\n

“I’m all for free markets,” people say. “I just think a free market depends on [insert this or that government program] to ensure [this or that value].” As if, granting the premise that a free market depends on those things [it plainly does not, because a free market depends on nothing but the free, unfettered interplay of billions of human beings], government has any reasonably good track record of providing any effective program that produces a desired value.<\/p>\n

There are awful lawyers today. There are also awful cosmetologists, auto mechanics, plumbers, farmers, shopowners, etc. etc. Let’s have regulations for everything until every sector ends up like the health care industry.<\/p>\n

This video is instructive.<\/a> Watch to the very end. The woman’s rejoinder is a perfect encapsulation of the Poverty of Imagination mindset I describe above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the sad things about the modern welfare state – which I’d date to about World War I and really got underway with the New Deal – is that it’s caused a poverty of imagination. People can’t imagine what the world would be like without this or that government regulation or this or that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-therapy","no-featured-image"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12717,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12717\/race-balanced-elections\/","url_meta":{"origin":14804,"position":0},"title":"Race Balanced Elections?","author":"Brian Brady","date":"July 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote a satirical piece last August about how life might be if the Federal Government increased its power.\u00a0 I suggested racial balancing might be a consideration in elections: President Menendez was elected by a sweeping margin when he ran against former Senator Mel Martinez in the first ever race-neutral\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Enduring Interest"","block_context":{"text":"Enduring Interest","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/enduring-interest\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12184,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12184\/per-capita-wealth-and-poverty-in-a-given-political-economy-is-strongly-correlated-both-with-economic-freedom-and-oppression-and-with-the-perception-of-integrity-or-corruption-among-government-official\/","url_meta":{"origin":14804,"position":1},"title":"Per-capita wealth and poverty in a given political economy is strongly correlated both with economic freedom and oppression and with the perception of integrity or corruption among government officials.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Countries that pursue policies of economic freedom have rich populations. Countries that obstruct free enterprise have poor populations. The relative wealth or poverty of a given population is strongly correlated with and can be readily predicted from the level of economic oppression in that political economy. This is easily understood\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12301,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12301\/in-a-sense-britain-inadvertently-through-its-actions-in-hong-kong-did-more-to-reduce-world-poverty-than-all-the-aid-programs-that-weve-undertaken-in-the-last-century\/","url_meta":{"origin":14804,"position":2},"title":"\u201cIn a sense, Britain inadvertently, through its actions in Hong Kong, did more to reduce world poverty than all the aid programs that we\u2019ve undertaken in the last century.\u201d","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"From The Atlantic, an explication of economist Paul Romer's idea to build modern-day Hong Kong-like enclaves to promote development in poverty-stricken counties:When Romer explains charter cities, he likes to invoke Hong Kong. For much of the 20th century, Hong Kong\u2019s economy left mainland China\u2019s in the dust, proving that enlightened\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17891,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/17891\/overnight-news-the-cure-for-homelessness-get-the-government-out-of-the-real-estate-business\/","url_meta":{"origin":14804,"position":3},"title":"Overnight News: The cure for homelessness? Get the government out of the real estate\u00a0business.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 25, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Absent zoning \u2013 without arbitrary government intrusions in the housing market \u2013 there is no homelessness. If the ordinary progression of housing from A-rated to D-paper is allowed to run its course, we find the people now living outdoors in D- or even E-level housing \u2013 but they are living\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12172,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12172\/how-socialism-makes-beggars-of-free-people-the-predictable-result-of-these-efforts-at-preventing-the-exploitation-of-man-by-man-was-the-collapse-of-production-pauperizing-an-already-poor-country\/","url_meta":{"origin":14804,"position":4},"title":"How Socialism makes beggars of free people: “The predictable result of these efforts at preventing the exploitation of man by man was the collapse of production, pauperizing an already poor country.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Theodore Dalrymple reflects on how the imposition of a Marxist redistributionist policy impoverishes what had been a self-sustaining economy:I next spent a few years (1983 to 1986) in Tanzania, a country that presented another experiment in treating poverty as a matter of maldistribution. Julius Nyerere, the first—and, until then, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16272,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16272\/doom-and-gloom-redux\/","url_meta":{"origin":14804,"position":5},"title":"Doom and Gloom Redux","author":"Damon Chetson","date":"December 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2008 - four years ago! - I penned a doom and gloom email that Greg posted to this here blog (with my permission). Soon thereafter, he invited me to join as a regular writer. To sum it up, I thought (and still do believe) there is no way the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14804"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14807,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14804\/revisions\/14807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}