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Two Machinery of Freedom Quotes

The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman page 13
Naturally, the socialist or the bluenose always assumes that if the state decides what people 'should' want, it will, since his values are 'right', decide his way.
page 11, quoting George Bernard Shaw who is "an unusually lucid socialist"
But Weary Willie may say that he hates work, and is quite willing to take less, and be poor and dirty and ragged or even naked for the sake of getting off with less work. But that, as we have seen, cannot be allowed: voluntary poverty is just as mischievous socially as involuntary poverty: decent nations must insist on their citizens leading decent lives, doing their full share of the nation's work, and taking their full share of its income. . . . Poverty and social irresponsibility will be forbidden luxuries.

Compulsory social service is so unanswerably right that the very first duty of a government is to see that everyone works enough to pay her way and leave something over for the profit of the country and the improvement of the world.
It is interesting to wonder how someone could see those consequences of socialism so clearly and still advocate it.

Elliot Temple on August 15, 2008

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