Self-Interest is Good - With One Notable Exception

Self-interest makes the economy work. Millions of people, endeavoring to satisfy their own needs, send price signals, which enable people to meet their needs as well as the state of technology allows.

In a free economy, the price signals also enable the poor to gain wealth faster than the rich.

But the self-interest of one group makes conditions worse for everyone, namely, the people at senior levels of government. They're the only ones who can induce us to do their bidding by exerting force.

Government officials are blind to the price signals that inform everyone else from minute to minute. Elections count, but they’re too infrequent to be as sensitive as price changes.

Government officials don’t judge their success by profit, because government earns no profit. Instead, they measure success in three ways: the power they exercise over others, the number of people who work for them, and the size of their budgets. Costs don’t count; those are paid by others. Officials just want the power and the money. It’s a one-way, ever-growing, highway to hell, because the bigger the government, the more net harm it does.