Government Isn't Civilized January 6, 2010

by Will

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

January 6, 2010

Although relatively few people are familiar with the phrase ?high time preference,? that concept explains why we are experiencing an economic crisis that literally threatens to demolish our civilization.

Simply put, high time preference is a tendency to demand immediate satisfaction of desire while deferring payment. As economic analyst Doug French points out, our civilization was built by people governed by exactly the opposite priorities: They delayed consumption, saved their earnings, and built capital.

Time preference can be changed by a crisis, such as illness or disaster. Criminals use violence and fraud to impose their skewed time preference on others. But only government is capable of perverting the time preference of an entire society through large-scale force and fraud ? that is, through redistribution of wealth via taxation and inflation.

Civilization can survive disasters, plagues, and the depredations of private criminals. But, as we are learning, it cannot long survive the routine violation of property rights by a government ruled by a high time preference.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

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