Insatiable Government
[This essay, which exposes the big-government policies of the Hoover administration, was first published in the Saturday Evening Post, June 25, 1932. It appears for the first time in a book by the Garrett of the same title, available through Mises.org]
There are many aspects of government. The one least considered is what may be called the biological aspect, in which government is like an organism with such an instinct for growth and self-expression that if let alone it is bound to destroy human freedom — not that it might wish to do so but that it could not in nature do less. No government ever wants less government — that is, less of itself. No government ever surrenders power, even its emergency powers — not really. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (6)
Since defective government will not surrender its power even though it stands in the way of the advancement of civilization something has to happen. The tide cannot be held back!
Bureaucracy is one of the chronic afflictions of interventionism and this condition renders the bloated partisan political system inept. Alertness of all kinds by people who get a taste of truth-seeking sloughs off the hollow shell and replaces it with the rekindled essence of classical liberalism.
Internal and external forces converge destroying the fallacies that the power elite have parroted to a populace held in captivity by ignorance.
'Emperor without clothes' is a good analogy of the growing awareness that leads to the dethroning of the empiricists, and the ego-driven interventionists, and their overlords - the power elite.
Published: July 25, 2008 10:09 PM
The thesis of the opening paragraph is of course wrong. Just look at China as an example of decreasing government that comes from the government.
Published: July 26, 2008 10:42 AM
I think a modern writer would guard his wording more carefully, because of China's example, or the peaceful collapse of Russian hyper-statism or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Still, there remains a plausibility to it. The apparent counter-examples were really of examples of states in planned chaos, trying for a long time to stave off the recalcitrant reality that was telling them that in fact their own enormous governments were the cause of all their economic problems.
Published: July 26, 2008 11:48 AM
"the people are in a large measure themselves to blame. They have not only tolerated but given encouragement to an ever-expanding cost of government. The spenders were the ones elected to office and bond issues voted with cheerful alacrity."
The above was true in 1932 and is true today, 2008.
The process continues sometimes faster sometimes slower. The end is the same: more government waste supported by more taxes. There are limits however and these limits are generally manifest in Depressions. Then the cycles start all over again.
The public in general can't see the corruption they vote for or even worse now when the choices put forward are: the government wins, the taxpayer losses the education system ensures that. The trap has been closed and there is no escape except for death. alas!
Published: July 26, 2008 5:06 PM
Ron Paul was the only candidate to speak of reducing government and was treated like a leper by the GOP. What a shame!
Published: July 27, 2008 3:56 PM
I think it was in some movie I saw:
Q: "Which wolf in the pack is the happiest?"
A: "The beta, lots of power and only responsible to the alpha."
Published: July 27, 2008 6:05 PM