Taming Leviathan with a Basic Income

Anne Krueger in 1974s “The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society” describes how incremental political interventions into the market eventually accumulate enough that they prevent the market from efficiently allocating society’s scarce resources. Arguably, the United States is at that point today. The United States is experiencing its worst period of prolonged underemployment since the foundation of the modern welfare state in the 1930s. Ted Burczak (2006: 139) calls this market malfunctioning, the welfare state “confront[ing] intractable Hayekian knowledge problems.” Robert Higgs describes “regime uncertainty,” which is the property rights uncertainty that results from changing and unpredictable policies.