Archive for Kenneth McDonald

Perspective: Why Welfare Fails

First, government has no money of its own. What money it spends must be taken from the people, or borrowed in the people’s name. Therefore, when it takes money from some people and gives it to other people, it is engaging in legal plunder. Second, the forced transfers are two-edged: those from whom the money [...]

1Jun1991 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

The True Charity

Kenneth McDonald is a free-lance writer and editor living in Toronto. When government expands, special interest groups divert its powers to their own ends. These groups look upon government as a way to get other people to pay for things which group members would like to have but don’t want to pay for themselves. Often [...]

1Jun1987 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Social Theorists See Groups, Not People

Mr. McDonald is a free-lance writer and editor living in Toronto. The redistribution of income has become such a major activity of modern governments as almost to dominate the political scene. In 1986 transfer payments of one kind or another consumed nearly half of the United States’ Federal spending and more than half of Canada’s. [...]

1Feb1987 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Government, The State, and Private Property

Kenneth McDonald is a free-lance writer and editor living in Toronto. “The positive testimony of history,” wrote Albert Jay Nock in Our Enemy, The State, “is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation.” From earliest times, roving bands of warriors raided settlements, expropriated the coveted possessions, and slaughtered or dispersed the [...]

1Feb1986 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Americas Two Elites

Kenneth McDonald is a tree-lance writer and editor, living in Toronto. In a recent survey, Freeman readers were asked whether they were optimistic or pessimistic about the future of freedom in America. The fact that the question should have been asked is disturbing. Yet the seeds of doubt are being sown. A casual reader of [...]

1Nov1985 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Routing the Fabians

Kenneth McDonald is a free-lance writer and editor living in Toronto. I can still hear Sidney Webb explaining to me that the future belonged to the great administrative nations, where the officials govern and the police keep order. —Élie Halévy Founded in England in 1884, the Fabian Society’s aim was to spread the ideas of [...]

1Oct1985 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

For Work of Comparable Worth

Kenneth McDonald is a free-lance writer and editor living in Toronto. In the State of Washington, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees got a court ruling that requires the state to pay the same wage to men and women for work of “comparable worth.” In an interview, (US News & World Report, [...]

1Jul1985 | Kenneth McDonald | 1 comment | Continued

To Help the Poor

Kenneth McDonald is a Toronto free-lance writer. This article first appeared in The Globe and Mail (Toronto) July 31, 1984. Canada’s commitment to the redistribution of income is well established. In 1970, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said: “We believe the Government of Canada must have the power to redistribute income, between persons and between provinces, [...]

1Dec1984 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Getting Governments Out of Debt

Kenneth McDonald is a freelance writer and editor, living in Toronto. A curious feature of the economic scene is the persistence with which commentators regard government’s financial affairs as being somehow different from everybody else’s. Government’s indebtedness, both in its annual form of deficits and in its perennial form of accumulated debt, is merely a [...]

1Sep1984 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Canada Damaged by Faulty Theories

Mr. McDonald is a Toronto free-lance writer on economic and political affairs. Traditionally, Canada’s economic performance has trailed that of the United States. Markets and productivity suffer the consequences of a much smaller population spread thinly astride a narrow band that stretches 3,000 miles from Newfoundland to British Columbia. In recent years, however, Canada’s relative [...]

1Oct1982 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Contraction of State Must Be Common Goal

Kenneth McDonald is a Toronto free-lance writer. This article is adapted from one that appeared in Re-pert on Business, The Globe end Mail, Toronto. More than a century ago, Frederic Bastiat described the state as “that great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” The illusion haunts the [...]

1Dec1981 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Socialist Games

Kenneth McDonald is a Toronto free-lance writer. This article first appeared in The Toronto Sun, July 10, 1980. Dear to the hearts of socialists is the phrase “social justice.” It strengthens belief in their cause and gives them a stick to beat their opponents with. Like many high- sounding phrases, however, it is never defined. [...]

1Nov1980 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Sixth Wheel

A formula for reducing/curbing government spending to encourage production by individuals.

1Apr1979 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Risk and Profit versus Security

The search for security gives rise to taxes and drives away the risk which accompanies creativity.

1May1978 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

Who Guards the Guardians?

When the growth of a bureaucracy passes beyond control, it becomes a law unto itself.

1Jan1978 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

A Climate of Opportunity

Required of government: A climate that will allow people to keep a major portion of whatever reward a venture may bring them.

1Aug1977 | Kenneth McDonald | 0 comments | Continued

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