As kids, many of us baby boomers were often told by well meaning adults, “The policeman is your friend.” In the era of (relative) political innocence prior to the Vietnam War and Watergate, these adults could be forgiven their surpassing naiveté. But now “mere libertarian” (his term) economist Dan Klein goes these adults one better and counsels us: “Sometimes coercion is our friend.” Dan’s rationale is summed up in a PowerPoint slide bullet point: ”It is possible that a reform that increases initiation of direct coercion will in the long run reduce coercion.”
Dan’s interesting take on Mere Libertarianism can be seen here. His statement about coercion occurs about 13:38 into the video.
