| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
It likely has occurred to everyone at least once that it would be a wonderful thing to win the lottery. And many of us have indeed bought a lottery ticket at least once in our lives, only to validate the well-known fact that the chances of winning in a lottery are rather small. Some of us, though, may have not put up with this sober conclusion and proceeded on the assumption that if we bought two tickets our chances of winning the lottery would increase twofold, and then perhaps extrapolated the logic to three, five, or even ten tickets. And a few of us might have even entertained the theoretical possibility that if we bought all the tickets we would be assured of winning the lottery. There is nothing wrong with dreaming of a stroke of luck and trying to maximize one's chances. But it also pays to use common sense and elementary knowledge of the probability calculus. Buying all the lottery tickets will not only give you an absolute certainty of winning but also an absolute certainty of losing vast amounts of money in the process.
But what, one may ask, does buying a lottery ticket have to do with freedom? Freedom, after all, is arguably not an outcome of a random process like winning in a lottery. It is a conscious choice to believe that men are born with certain inalienable rights and should be thus free to make decisions about their lives. Based on this belief, we build the institutions of a free society, provide them with the necessary checks and balances, and guarantee the rule of law to prevent arbitrary punishment and thwart attempts to hijack our freedom. For all the problems of a free society, we believe with Winston Churchill that democracy, the political system that embodies, maintains, and administers a free society, is vastly preferable to all the alternatives. Living in a democracy, we believe that we have hit the jackpot in the lottery of political systems.
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