Claude Frederic Bastiat, a prominent 19th-century political economist, wrote: "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. ... Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve. But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another. ... then abolish that law without delay. No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic."
(quotation courtesy The Patriot Post)
Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
Aug 5, 2010
Mar 5, 2009
Timeless wisdom

"Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution. ... The only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off."
Ayn Rand
(we need you now more than ever)
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