Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy
I recently read an article that you'd never guess was called "Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy." You can check out the full thing here: http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=3832. Since this is the internet nobody wants to read that whole thing, so I'll briefly state the points and summarize their meaning and see what people think.
1. Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.
Explanation: No he's not talking about wanting to own slaves as he firmly believes everyone should be equal under the law. He is instead talking about people's "income and material wealth." Free people will earn different amounts of money from one another, and attempts to equalize everyone only hurts everyone and takes away freedom.
2. What belongs to you, you tend to take care of; what belongs to no one or everyone, tends to fall into disrepair. (The last comma wasn't in the original, but it reads clearer when it's included).
Explanation: He talks about Soviet Russia. "What was once the entrepreneur's factory became 'the people's factory,' and the people made do with goods so shoddy there was no market for them beyond the borders." This is a pretty intuitive concept that, in general, places/things someone privately owns are taken care of much better than something which nobody really owns (i.e. public properties).
3. Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.
Explanation: He speaks against policies that make a few people feel good now at the expense of hurting many tomorrow. These policies include almost everything that's made government bigger over the last century and policies of deficit spending. "We should remember that today is the tomorrow that yesterday's poor policymakers told us we could ignore." Quick-fixes should always be looked at with great skepticism.
4. If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it.
Explanation: I cannot do this one justice with a summary as his presentation of it was near-perfect. Basically he's saying that if you tax the rich at a higher rate than everyone else, then you're discouraging people from becoming rich (at least in that country). Basically if you wanted to create wealth in a country by being an entrepreneur, would you want to do so where it was discouraged through higher taxes, or encouraged with lower taxes? People generally want to actually keep more of the money that they earn, so they go with lower taxes which is why Hong Kong has gone from extremely poor to ridiculously prosperous in a very short time (very technical terms I know, but the history speaks for itself if one must look it up).
5. Nobody spends someone else's money as carefully as he spends his own.
Explanation: When people spend their own money on themselves there is a direct and immediate benefit to the spender. People tend to be pretty careful with their own money, and tend to make good decisions much more often than poor ones. When people spend their own money on others, they are still likely to get a good deal, but they won't necessarily end up buying what the other person wants or needs.
When you use someone else's money on yourself you'll likely get the right thing, but don't have a huge incentive to get the best deal. The last form of spending is exactly what government does, which is spend someone else's money on other people. This has the highest potential for waste, as the connection between the earner, the spender, and the recipient is the weakest.
6. Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government that's big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you've got.
Explanation: This is really self-explanatory. In his explanation he talks about how the "welfare state" is hardly more "than robbing Peter to pay Paul, after laundering and squandering much of Peter's wealth through an indifferent, costly bureaucracy. He goes on to explain that free and independent people don't look to the government for sustenance, but see it for its true intended purpose of protecting our liberties, confined to certain minimal functions that revolve around keeping the peace, maximizing everyone's opportunities and otherwise leaving us alone.
7. Liberty makes all the difference in the world.
Explanation: He says this is just another point to make the last six absolutely clear. Policymakers today too often give absolutely no thought to the general state of liberty when making new policies. If it feels good or sounds good they just do it. Liberty is absolutely the most important thing we need to protect, but things aren't often seen that way anymore.
That pretty much sums it up. I highly suggest reading the linked essay for thorough explanations if you plan on arguing against any of the points since they all seem self-evident to me so I'm sure my explanations are lacking.
