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“Because it is a monopoly, government brings inefficiency and stagnation to most things it runs; government agencies pursue the inflation of their budgets rather than the service of their customers; pressure groups form an unholy alliance with agencies to extract more money from taxpayers for their members. Yet despite all this, most clever people still call for government to run more things and assume that if it did so, it would somehow be more perfect, more selfless, next time.”
― The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
― The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
“You will probably object to Weber’s definition of the government as a monopoly of coercion. You will certainly object to Tolstoy’s definition, in 1857, of the government as “a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens.”5 And you will object vehemently to the more recent definition along the same lines by the anarcho-capitalist economist Murray Rothbard (1926–1995), of the government as “the most extensive criminal group in society.” 6 Murray used to say that the government is a band of robbers into whose clutches we have fallen.”
― Why Liberalism Works: How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All
― Why Liberalism Works: How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All
“The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.”
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Jerome’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Jerome’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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