question
so the question of the day is: can the government create wealth? or does it just move money around? it's a popular sound bite with the anti-tax crowd. with whom i sympathize. but is it true? a government can clearly create wealth for itself. count the palaces of the king of saud, saddam hussein, and the vatican, for examples. but that's only creation relative to itself. that wealth was taken from others. governments can clearly inhibit the creation of wealth. by not allowing people to harvest resources. like the oil in anwr. and by consuming the available lines of credit. and by stupid monetary policies like printing so much paper money inflation makes it worthless. i assert governments can facilitate the creation of wealth by doing things that benefit all of us. things that no other organization has a direct incentive to do. like build and finance schools and infrastructure. like roads and power lines and internet backbones. so i guess the answer is yes and no. the government can't directly create wealth any more than a hammer and saw can. however, those tools allow me to do work, and hence create wealth, that i wouldn't be able to do without them.