John C. Médaille > Quotes

“Unfortunately, in a hierarchical structure, power relationships tend to determine the content; there is always the danger that a "rank-based" logic will prevail. Managers, intent on advancement, tend to supply the information they know their superiors want to hear, rather than the information they ought to hear. Large organizations tend, therefore, to become systematically stupid.”
― John Médaille

“Anyone who objects to any government whatsoever as a form of socialism ought not to pull that socialist lever in their home, the one that makes their waste disappear in a whirlpool into the socialized sewage treatment plant.”
― John Médaille

“The most important thing, the first thing, in understanding anything is to get the name right. If you and I were to have a conversation on any subject, say horses, and you were to refer to them as "dogs" and I were to call them "cats", there is a good chance that misunderstandings might arise—misunderstandings that could never be resolved until we decided to agree on a name for the thing we were talking about.”
― John Médaille

“Human beings are not self-sufficient as individuals. We are born naked against the elements and helpless in ourselves; we are dependent upon others from the beginning, and apart from them we would not last our first day on earth. This dependency continues throughout our lives, since none of us can or should acquire all the skills necessary to grow our own food, make our own shoes, provide our own education, etc. We are by nature social beings and thrive only in community. Therefore, the purpose of government is to provide the conditions under which all the other communities that make up the social fabric can flourish. First and foremost among these other communities is the community of the family, the one that first calls us into being through an act of love and gives us the gifts that will form us—not only the material gifts of food, clothing, and shelter, but also the gifts of language, of culture, of our first experience of love and belonging, and, most importantly, the gift of a name, a name that ties us to family but is uniquely ours, the name that lets us know that we are both part of something and unique beings.”
― John Médaille, Toward a Truly Free Market: A Distributist Perspective on the Role of Government, Taxes, Health Care, Deficits, and More

“Unfortunately, all of these things that government provides have a cost and need to be paid for. Typically, they are funded through taxation. Certain libertarians proclaim, “All taxes are theft.” Perhaps, but the claims would have more force if libertarians would refuse to call the police when their homes have been robbed, or the fire department when their homes are burning. One could say that this holds the libertarian to too high a standard, since we must all live in the world as it is and obey its rules. But since we do live in the world, we must pay for the services we consume; this is not theft, it is simply being an adult.”
― John Médaille, Toward a Truly Free Market: A Distributist Perspective on the Role of Government, Taxes, Health Care, Deficits, and More

“Economic equilibrium cannot be divorced from economic equity, and the attempt to do so will lose both equity and equilibrium; the economy will be unable to balance itself, and so will either fall to ruin, or to ruinous government attempts to redress the balance.”
― John Médaille, Toward a Truly Free Market: A Distributist Perspective on the Role of Government, Taxes, Health Care, Deficits, and More