Abstract

The Bastiat Society of San Francisco invites you to join us with Dr. Richard Salsman, President of InterMarket Forecasting and Professor of Political Economy at Duke University, on Crises, Real and Exaggerated.

Crises are often invoked by tyrants to expand improper state power, even when such power causes crises. In 2008 Obama chief-of-staff Rom Emanuel said that “you never want a serious crisis go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before” because crises “lend themselves to ideas from both parties for the solution.” The “things” he alluded to were not liberty-enhancing things derived from calm reflection or cool reason, but illiberal things imposed amid phobias and panics, with uniform political support. Tyrants are adept at dodging responsibility for the crises they cause, to maintain or enhance their power; they also tend to contrive crises and exaggerate minor ones. Dr. Salsman examines this problem – drawn from a section of his new book, Where Have All the Capitalists Gone? Essays in Moral Political Economy  – focusing on the crises of 2001-02, 2008-09, and 2020-21.

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