There’s an old story worth retelling about a band of wild hogs which lived along a river in a wild and remote area. These hogs were a stubborn, ornery, independent bunch. They had survived floods, fires, freezes, droughts, hunters, dogs and everything else. No one thought they could ever be captured.
One day a stranger came into a town not far from where the hogs lived and went into the general store. He asked the storekeeper, “Where can I find the hogs? I want to round them up. I could sell the meat for a small fortune.” The storekeeper laughed at such a claim but pointed in the general direction. The stranger left with his one-horse wagon, an ax and a few sacks of corn.
Two months later he returned, went back to the store and asked for help to bring the hogs out. He said he had them all penned up in the woods. People were amazed and came from miles around to hear him tell the story of how he did it.
“The first thing I did,” the stranger said, “was clear a small area of the woods with my ax. Then I put some corn in the center of the clearing. At first, none of the hogs would take the corn. Then after a few days, some of the young ones would come out, snatch some corn and then scamper back into the underbrush. Then the older ones began taking the corn, probably figuring that if they didn’t get it, some of the other ones would. Soon they were all eating the corn. They stopped grubbing for acorns and roots on their own.
“About that time, I started building a fence around the clearing, a little higher each day. At the right moment, I built a trap door and sprung it. Naturally, they squealed and hollered when they knew I had them, but I can pen any animal on the face of the earth if I can first get him to depend on me for a free handout!”
I first heard that story from a wise gentleman named Tom Anderson from Tennessee, many years ago. I’ve thought of it ever since as a fairly good summation of what’s happened to many civilizations in history once people discovered the political process as a way to vote themselves a living instead of working for one. It’s a vivid illustration of the tradeoff expressed in this saying: “A government that’s big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you’ve got.” Think of ancient Rome as a case in point: http://fee.org/articles/rome-great-depression/.
Fishing is a favorite pastime of mine, but it occurred to me that fishing has a few things in common with welfare state socialism. First you offer something for nothing to the gullible and unsuspecting; then you hook them, reel them in, and then eat them.
Wild hogs and fish. Whoever said that animals can’t teach us humans a thing or two?!
W styczniu 2020 roku Wielka Brytania formalnie opuściła Unię Europejską. Oczekiwane korzyści z brexitu, poza odzyskaniem suwerenności w zakresie kształtowania prawa i zewnętrznych relacji gospodarczych, jednak się nie zmaterializowały. Widoczny jest natomiast spadek wydajności i konkurencyjności brytyjskiej gospodarki, co wpływa także na kondycję rynku pracy.
