Robert Higgs on opinions and ideology

To embrace ideology is to join a community of like-minded people. “Opinions,” a political scientist has written, “are the invisible membership cards of society. They tell us who is like us and who may be against us. Opinions held in common are powerful bonds.”

~ Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan

Robert Higgs on how crises heighten ideological expression on both sides

[I]deology becomes most prominent during social crisis.  When the existing order is widely perceived as working poorly, breaking down, or facing serious challenge from foreign or domestic enemies, the incentives for ideological expression are heightened on both sides.  On the one hand, supporters of the status quo find it imperative to articulate and disseminate their ideology to shore up threatened institutions.  On the other hand, crises provide excellent opportunities for ideological entrepreneurs to find a market for their wares among the growing ranks of the disaffected.

~ Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, p. 47

Robert Higgs on the limits of government

The willingness of citizens to tolerate costs, which must be borne if the policies are to be carried out, declines as costs rise... Even the (initially) most popular war loses support as casualties mount, tax burdens rise, and military appetites consume more of the resources needed to produce civilian goods and services.  Government officials know that the citizens have limits.  Pushing them beyond the limits jeopardizes not only the success of the policies but the very survival of governments.

~ Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, pp. 64-65

Robert Higgs on the irrationality of pursuing ends through political means

To elicit the desired response from government, people take costly actions.  They sacrifice valuable time, effort, money, and other resources in order to send letters and telegrams to politicians, campaign and vote for candidates and pressure groups, and act in other ways as members of large political groups.  Although such actions are utterly familiar, the first theorist to inquire seriously whether they are rational concluded that, except under special conditions, they are not.

~ Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, p. 39

Robert Higgs on government meddling in the economy during WWI

By the time of the armistice, the government had taken over the ocean-shipping, railroad, telephone, and telegraph industries; commandeered hundreds of manufacturing plants; entered into massive enterprises on its own account in such varied departments as shipbuilding, wheat trading, and building construction; undertaken to lend huge sums to business directly or indirectly and to regulate the private issuance of securities; established official priorities for the use of transportation facilities, food, fuel, and many raw materials; fixed the prices of dozens of important commodities; intervened in hundreds of labor disputes; and conscripted millions of men for service in the armed forces.

~ Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan