Economic Development Takings as Government Failure

Ilya Somin

Chapter Chapter 7 in The Pursuit of Justice, 2010, pp 123-144 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith famously argued that decentralized market transactions generate wealth “by an invisible hand” (Smith 197 6) and that they usually achieve this end better than direct governmental efforts to control the allocation of resources. Takings for “economic development” are based on the exact opposite assumption: that resources will often fail to generate as much wealth as they should unless their allocation is controlled by the visible hand of the state. Unfortunately, the visible hand of eminent domain often destroys as much wealth as it creates and too easily becomes a grasping hand serving the interests of the politically powerful at the expense of the targeted weak.

Keywords: Economic Benefit; Private Party; Government Failure; Public Purpose; Eminent Domain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-10949-0_7

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230109490_7

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