Why fears about municipal

Besides charting the growth of government, Higgs identified the fundamental psychological cause. He recognized the political significance of the negativity effect, also called the negativity bias—the universal tendency of negative events and emotions to affect us more strongly than positive ones. The people who have the effrontery to rule us, who call themselves our government, understand this basic fact of human nature.

They exploit it, and they cultivate it. These two fears compose a powerful compound—sufficient to prop up governments everywhere on earth for several millennia. Then, in the nineteenth century, came new fears to justify the creation of the welfare state. Nearly everything that the people feared, the government then stood poised to ward off.

People always fear tax increases, and a proposal to benefit one special interest will typically be opposed by another, creating a political logjam. Politicians—aided by media hysteria—seize the opportunity to dispense funds, create new programs, and enact proposals that had languished before the crisis.

The current pandemic, for instance, has given protectionists a new excuse for restricting international trade. Progressives in Congress have tried to create new protections for workers and immigrants, subsidies for alternative energy, and mandates for diversity programs. Trillions have been added to the national debt with little debate because criticism becomes taboo during a crisis.

The Covid lockdown measures are supposed to be temporary, but Higgs expects them to endure due to another consequence of the negativity effect: because bad events have more impact than good ones, people strive harder to avoid losses than they do to achieve gains.

This asymmetry assists every effort to hang onto iron triangles created or enlarged during a crisis. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website.

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