Freeman December Banner   Bad Is Not Good  How Does an
Interventionist Culture Reform Itself?   Youthful exponents of
the freedom philosophy sometimes believe that things will get
better politically only if they first get worse. As statism
brings its inevitable hardships, people will correctly identify
the causes of their adversity and demand a rollback of
government power.  The Russian Revolution, which grew out of a
miserable war, seems to support the theory that bad can lead to
revolutionary change. But there’s one hitch. The Bolsheviks
sought an increase in state power. Libertarians seek a vast
reduction. That a crisis can lead to socialism—indeed,
totalitarianism—is no evidence that it can lead to capitalism.
We’re reminded of this by an economist at George Mason
University, and an old friend, Bryan Caplan. In his article “The
Idea Trap,” Caplan writes, “A society can get stuck in an ‘idea
trap,’ where bad ideas lead to bad policy, bad policy leads to
bad growth, and bad growth cements bad ideas. Once y