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July 17, 2004
Ask Not
Don Boudreaux
In her April 30th column in USA Today, Julianne Malveaux endorsed conscription with the following line: “perhaps we ought to think about asking young people to give a year of service, either in the armed forces or in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps or other national service programs.”
In his (excellent) principles-of-economics textbook, Gregory Mankiw writes that “the individual income tax asks the financially successful to contribute more than others to support the government.” (3rd. ed., p. 5.)
I ask: why “ask”? These policies, regardless of their merits, are not requests. They are commands. Their coercive nature ought not be masked with sweet words such as “ask.”
Posted by Don Boudreaux in Myths and Fallacies | Permalink
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Cafe Hayek, a blog written and maintained by Russel Roberts and Don Boudreaux, is one of the Club’s favorites. Both men are accomplished professors at the best economics department in the world — George Mason University in Fairfax, VA (full... [Read More]
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