sinophile
03-16-2009, 11:20 PM
Book review found here (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/03/16/how-rich-countries-die/).
Haven't read the book yet, but plan to. Will ask my doctor to prescribe me Prozac before I read it.
Olson suggests that a rational voter should remain as ignorant as possible about politics and policies. Even if special interests manage to siphon off 80 percent of the voter’s income, the voter is better off devoting his or her energy to earning more rather than attempting to change the system (likely to require full-time effort, reducing income to $0, and be futile because the voter has no money compared to the special interests). If we ever had the opportunity to vote for something that would restrict the influence of lobbyists and special interests, we should do it, but Olson would predict that such an opportunity will never arise.
One thing an individual can do is choose where to live and in which industry to work. The logical conclusion from reading this book is to prefer a new state to an old state, a newly stable state to a long-stable state, and a new industry to an old one. The worst thing that a young person could do, for example, would be to move to Michigan to work for G.M.’s automobile division. The second best thing would be to move to Alaska or an up-and-coming foreign country and work to extract some new kind of energy. The very smartest choice would be to move to Washington, D.C. and work as a lobbyist for a decaying industry that is bleeding the U.S. economy and taxpayer…
Haven't read the book yet, but plan to. Will ask my doctor to prescribe me Prozac before I read it.
Olson suggests that a rational voter should remain as ignorant as possible about politics and policies. Even if special interests manage to siphon off 80 percent of the voter’s income, the voter is better off devoting his or her energy to earning more rather than attempting to change the system (likely to require full-time effort, reducing income to $0, and be futile because the voter has no money compared to the special interests). If we ever had the opportunity to vote for something that would restrict the influence of lobbyists and special interests, we should do it, but Olson would predict that such an opportunity will never arise.
One thing an individual can do is choose where to live and in which industry to work. The logical conclusion from reading this book is to prefer a new state to an old state, a newly stable state to a long-stable state, and a new industry to an old one. The worst thing that a young person could do, for example, would be to move to Michigan to work for G.M.’s automobile division. The second best thing would be to move to Alaska or an up-and-coming foreign country and work to extract some new kind of energy. The very smartest choice would be to move to Washington, D.C. and work as a lobbyist for a decaying industry that is bleeding the U.S. economy and taxpayer…