ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax


Predatory behavior is always bad, not mattering if it comes from the government (executive, legislature or judiciary), a political party, a group of politicians, an industry or a "too big to fail" single company, a church, a group of power, a pressure group (lobbyist, for example), a "well-connected" single individual, a ngo, etc. But, what are the causes of that predatory behavior? Some argue in favor of a restricted and bounded entry in those groups (less predatory agents=>less competition for resources=>less predation; induced inefficiency in rent seeking), other argue in favor of a more effective impersonal controls on those groups (better laws, rules, regulation, etc; better incentives=>better behavior), other argue in favor of less profitable opportunities for predatory behavior by means of governmental partiality, at all (reduced government, legislation, regulation, etc). The first and last standpoints work without any information about agents' preferences, but the first sounds "anti-democratic". The third presumes that every predatory behavior emanates from the political power, as predatory behavior was linked to "political", not to "the power". That is, any agent with some kind of power, including political power, military power, economic power, seduction power, and so forth, will use that power predatorily if that is advantageous for the empowered agent. So, I am not versed in solutions for this kind of problems, but any efficacious solution should pulverize powers of mass effect, without violate some essential rights and property rights.