Does the Government Keep Society Running in the Background?

Patrick Carroll : We need to be confident before we jump into a dystopia that we aren’t jumping into a dystopiania.

Economic reasoning gives us good reasons to be optimistic, he says.

Every one of these items inevitably falls into one of two categories: things the government has monopolized and that could easily be addressed by the private sector.

Patrick Carroll : Trade barriers create unfair advantages for certain domestic producers at the expense of foreign producers and domestic consumers.

Carroll: Far from “keeping society running,” this role of government is better understood as “holding society back” The fact that the private sector can’t accomplish this is a feature of the free market, not a bug, he says.