What makes anyone think that government officials are even trying to protect us? A government is not analogous to a hired security guard. Governments do not come into existence as social service organizations or as private firms seeking to please consumers in a competitive market. Instead, they are born in conquest and nourished by plunder. They are, in short, well-armed gangs intent on organized crime. Yes, rulers have sometimes come to recognize the prudence of protecting the herd they are milking and even of improving its infrastructure until the day they decide to slaughter the young bulls, but the idea that government officials seek to promote my interests or yours is little more than propagandaunless, of course, you happen to belong to the class of privileged tax eaters who give significant support to the government and therefore receive in return a share of the loot.
About This Quote
About Robert Higgs
Robert Higgs was a contemporary American economic historian. Robert Higgs is an American economic historian and economist. He is known for research on the growth of the United States government, especially the ratchet effect, the idea that state power expands during wars and other crises and only partly recedes afterward, which he developed in Crisis and Leviathan (1987). Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Freedom — The value of liberty, independence, and self-determination