When the route to immortality is to become a government program, how can wasteful, dysfunctional bureaucracies be weeded out? Try a “predatory bureaucracy.” A predator is an organism that captures and extracts its sustenance from other animals. We can learn a great deal about the federal budget by, as a simple thought experiment, introducing a […]
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Environmental activists, freedom lovers, and those preferring a less intrusive government share a common perception. They see the government agencies responsible for natural resource management as bureaucratic parasites. Rather than steward our resources, they systematically advocate programs that are environmentally costly, are financially wasteful, and increase the scope of the federal government at the expense […]
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“Strange bedfellows make interesting children.” This observation from Don Snow, Arts and Literary Director of Gallatin Institute, applies to the recently released “Green Scissors” report. The report originated from a hitherto latent coalition of environmentalists and pro-market advocates. On the one side, we have Rep. Kasich (R-OH), a “Gingrich acolyte.” On the other is Ralph […]
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By my count, my wife Ramona and I represent nine generations in American agriculture. With her competence and cheer, we ran 500 ewes and wintered horses on our home place in Montana’s Gallatin Valley. After a time we sold the sheep, and for several years I taught in the University of Washington’s business school where […]
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Like a zombie in a second-rate horror movie, the Hyalite timber sale is once again rising from the grave. Reaction is predictable: already on the defensive, the Forest Service promises a “kinder, gentler” project, while environmentalists scramble for silver bullets, trying desperately to send this beast to its grave. Resurrection of the Hyalite sale guarantees […]
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People agree strong government does much good. Nothing new here. But there is a change. Once it seemed that only the sophisticated, the cynical, and economists allied with the University of Chicago understood government’s potentials for mischief. For a generation, the proportion of analysts writing on the pathologies and pitfalls of government power has grown. […]
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February 22, 1997 marks the centennial of the creation of the national forest system. We can learn a lot from America’s century-long romance with sylvan socialism. This Progressive Era experiment featured centralized planning by green Platonic despots; it has inspired America’s environmental legislation ever since. The Progressive Era reformers, in contrast to America’s Founding Fathers, […]
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The cowboy symbolizes the American West and universal manly virtues. For a few decades these rugged individualists ran roughshod over the wild expanse of the West, herding cattle, taming broncs, and working dawn to dusk. In myth, the cowboy still is the West at its best. But times they are a changing. The West isn’t […]
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The timber wolf is an icon of the changing West. It also offers a litmus test of the ability to think clearly. Emotional baggage is chained to the species like a # 4 Victor, the trapper’s tool of choice. Ranchers I’ve known for 30 years have come untrained, loudly sputtering at me for defending the […]
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Whether we’re trying to save species or specie, decisions are based on information and incentives. Regulations that generate poor incentives simply won’t work. Good intentions are not enough. Congress tried to protect endangered species via the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973. Prior to 1973, landowners could freely use their land, even if endangered species […]
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