The state having nothing that was not first taken from the people, cannot give lavishly to the people.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 238 to 240 (in French)
Jacques Bonhomme, June 11th, 1848

This article announces the pamphlet The State that will be written by Frédéric Bastiat three months later in which his probably most famous quote can be found, viz. “The state is the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”

We can find here an incomplete laundry list of everything that is demanded from the State by the people, from military might to subsidies through infrastructure spending. Frédéric Bastiat highlights the inconsistency there is in demanding less taxes while at the same time demanding more spending. Unfortunately, nothing much has changed since. I note in passing that if it is inconsistent to demand “less taxes” while demanding more government action, the liberal thought has been consolidated on the first part of the proposition in order to reduce the second. If there were a time when the people demanded less taxes selfishly, liberals demand less taxes not in order to pay less (which would be most welcome indeed) but in order to reduce government intervention, which has clearly become harmful through its extension into all aspects of life.