All the worry about Donald Trump’s potential abuses of power reminded me of Robert Higgs book Delusions of Power and specifically chapter two where he asks, and answers, the question “Do Slavery and Government Rest on the Same Rationalizations?”

He sums up the discussion this way:

“The parallels between the rationalizations of continued slavery and the rationalizations of continued government (as we know it) deserve serious consideration. Unless I have missed something important, the similarities between arguments against the abolition of slavery and arguments against the abolition of government as we know it should shake the faith of all Americans who still labor under the misconception that ours is a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” From where I stand, it looks distressingly like an institutional complex that rests on the same shaky intellectual foundations as slavery.”

Read an earlier article by Dr. Higgs entitled “Why We Couldn’t Abolish Slavery Then and Can’t Abolish Government Now” here… and don’t miss the chart of “Arguments Against the Abolition of Slavery and Arguments Against the Abolition of Government (as We Know It)" included at the bottom of the article.

The book is worth a read too.