This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University: Politicians Are NOT Prostitutes ... They Are Pimps
Many people have called politicians prostitutes.
True, Obama has received more donations from Goldman Sachs and the rest of the financial industry than almost anyone else.
And Summers and the rest of Obama's economic team have made many millions - even recently - from the financial industry.
And Congress has largely been bought and paid for, and two powerful congressmen have said that banks run Congress.
So yes, they have certainly sold their goods to the highest bidders.
Indeed, at least some people trust prostitutes more than elected officials.
But the prostitution analogy is inaccurate.
Specifically, as the chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University (Donald J. Boudreaux) points out:
Real
whores, after all, personally supply the services their customers seek.
Prostitutes do not steal; their customers pay them voluntarily. And
their customers pay only with money belonging to these customers.
In contrast, members of Congress routinely truck and barter with other people's property...
Members
of Congress are less like whores than they are like pimps for persons
unwillingly conscripted to perform unpleasant services.
Consider,
for example, agricultural subsidies. Each year a handful of farmers and
agribusinesses receive billions of taxpayer dollars. These are dollars
that government forcibly takes from the pockets of taxpayers and then
transfers to farmers.
The customers, in this case, are the
farmers and agribusinesses. The suppliers ofthe services performed for
these customers are taxpayers, for it's the taxpayers who possess the
ultimate asset -- money -- that farmers and agribusinesses lust after.
And the intermediaries who oblige the suppliers to satisfy the base
lusts of the customers are politicians. Just as pimps facilitate their
customers' access to prostitutes' assets, politicians facilitate their
customers' access to taxpayers' assets.
We taxpayers have less
say in the matter than we like to think. Sure, we can vote. But if even
just 50.00001 percent of voters cast their ballots for the candidate
proposing higher taxes, the assets of not only our pro-tax citizens,
but also those of the remaining 49.00009 percent of us anti-tax
citizens are put at the disposal of our pimps' customers. (And note
that many of those who vote for higher taxes are not among those
persons actually subject to higher taxation)...
Politicians force
taxpayers to pony it up -- just as the services rendered for a pimp's
customers are rendered not by that pimp personally, but by the ladies
under his charge. The pimp pockets the bulk of each payment; he's
pleased with the transaction. His customer gets serviced well in
return; he's pleased with the transaction. The only loser is
the prostitute forced to share her precious assets with strangers whom
she doesn't particularly care for and who care nothing for her.
Also
like the ladies under pimps' power, taxpayers who resist being
exploited risk serious consequences to their persons and pocketbooks.
Uncle Sam doesn't treat kindly taxpayers who try to avoid the
obligations that he assigns to them. Government is a great deal more
powerful, and often nastier, than is the typical taxpayer. Practically
speaking, the taxpayer has little choice but to perform as government
demands.
So to call politicians "whores" is to unduly insult
women who either choose or who are forced into the profession of
prostitution. These women aggress against no one; like all other
respectable human beings, they do their best to get by as well as they
can without violating other people's rights.
The real villains
in the prostitution arena are those pimps who coerce women into
satisfying the lusts of strangers. Such pimps pocket most of the gains
earned by the toil and risks involuntarily imposed upon the prostitutes
they control. No one thinks this arrangement is fair or justified. No
one gives pimps the title of "Honorable." Decent people don't care what
pimps think or suppose that pimps have any special insights into what
is good or bad for the women under their command. Decent people don't
pretend that pimps act chiefly for the benefit of their prostitutes.
Decent people believe that pimps should be in prison.
Yet
Americans continue to imagine that the typical representative or
senator is an upstanding citizen, a human being worthy of being feted
and listened to as if he or she possesses some unusually high moral or
intellectual stature.
It's closer to the truth to see
politicians as pimps who force ordinary men and women to pony up
freedoms and assets for the benefit of clients we call
"special-interest groups."
Note: There are a handful of honest politicians, fighting for the American people. But the exception proves the rule.
- advertisements -
So true!
I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.
Books
GW - They may be pimps, but they are pimping out of a 1 star Highway 1 flea bag. When these 'pimps" can actually use the Mayflower as a place of doing their business rather than a place of receiving the business let me know.
Remember, these politicians have forgotten the first lesson of Pratt Street. Be more careful.
Bullseye
+1000
GMU has and has had the best economics department in the country.
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok blog at www.marginalrevolution.com
Robin Hanson blogs at www.overcomingbias.com
Bryan Caplan blogs at http://econlog.econlib.org/
marginalrevolution is very overrated.
I'd replace it with austrianeconomists.typepad.com, which has two or three GMU guys.
I am actually dumber for having read that.
Small MATH Problem:
But if even just 50.00001 percent of voters cast their ballots for the candidate proposing higher taxes, the assets of not only our pro-tax citizens, but also those of the remaining 49.00009 percent of us anti-tax citizens are put at the disposal of our pimps' customers.
It SHOULD be 49.99999 percent - NOT 49.00009 percent ...
that's it!
Politicians are high price escorts. They travel under the guise of business and yet are selling $500 dollar a plate dinners. The pres and vice both sell hook a ton of money in Miami Beach.
We have no idea who really owns GS, JPM, and C, do we?
elliot was possibly set up -- not that he didnt do what was alleged - but it was likely presented to him -- so as to set him up
i respect elliott more than a lot of the politicians trying to kill the american taxpayer
go elliot
This man shares a blog ( cafehayek.com) with another professor from the same university. It has good common sense content. I love it!
EXACTLY! Now if only all of the US citizens knew and demanded this to STOP.
"Sure, we can vote. But if even just 50.00001 percent of voters cast their ballots for the candidate proposing higher taxes, the assets of not only our pro-tax citizens, but also those of the remaining 49.00009 percent of us anti-tax citizens are put at the disposal of our pimps' customers."
Its not what you think- its much much worse. Even if we vote for a guy who "promises" lower taxes he can still raise them. Its basically the only 'contract' ever where one party has complete discretion and the other party is just fucked and hopes for the best.
this is the kind of hard hitting commentary we expected from our experts. But the last 10 years we have seen an unbelievable amount of cowardice from the universities. This behavior is rather strange: we give these guys "tenure" so that they can speak truth to power. Instead most of the cowards in universities took the tenure and went hiding under their desks or spouted nonsense from the Fed and other people in power. It cowardice of the most heinous kind: it has destroyed the credibility of all university professors and has resulted in an entire generation (our kids) being condemned to penury. History will not be kind to America's economists and "professors".
The professor makes an interesting distinction between categorizing congressmen & senators as whores or pimps. I am sure that most of them could switch between either category.
In researching other articles by the good professor, I find him a proponent of abolishing laws against insider trading and allowing corporations themselves to decide what is "insider information". This only shows that as big a group of pimps and whores that reside in Congress, nothing matches the pimps and whores with PHDs in Economics.
Yes, we certainly wouldn't want to listen to what an economist has to say about insider trading. The government seems to have done a pretty good job eliminating the last vestiges of that game. But if we really want to make sure that nobody ever trades on inside information again, I say we simply only allow politicians to trade securities. Then, I say we lynch that evil Martha Stewart. I'm tired of being held down by the likes of that muffin queen.
it takes one to know one.
when he says:
"Members of Congress are less like whores than they are like pimps for persons unwillingly conscripted to perform unpleasant services."
He conveniently ignores the fact that the services performed by the pols for the special interests (in purely venal exchange for campaign cash and other aid) is the obtaining and detaining of laws and regulations intended to benefit those special interests, even to the great detriment of the general public.
most pols are whores literally selling a service. that's why the few who've shown themselves to be otherwise (grayson, paul, kucinich, kaptur, sherman, weiner, who esle?--- more names needed) deserve our attention and support.
Awesome.