We ought to pay for our chains when we love them, given that the state never gives us anything for nothing, not even irons.
Category: Concentrated benefits
PROPERTY AND LAW
Since Rousseau was convinced that the social state was a human invention, he had to place law and the legislator on a high pedestal.
12. THE RIGHT TO WORK AND THE RIGHT TO PROFIT.
I was silly enough to choose a form of industry that leaves me with a loss of 10 percent.
XV. – THE FREE TRADER’S LITTLE ARSENAL.
All injustice is of benefit to someone […]; to defend injustice on the grounds of the inconvenience that its abolition will cause the person who benefits from it, is to say that an injustice should be eternal for the sole reason that it has existed for an instant.
IX. – THEFT BY SUBSIDY.
Dono tibi et concedo, Virtutem et puissantiam, Volandi, Pilandi, Derobandi, Filoutandi, Et escroquandi, Impunè per totam istam, Viam.
IV. – THE LOWER COUNCIL OF LABOR.
It is better to provide for oneself surrounded by prosperous customers than to be protected surrounded by impoverished ones.
III. – THE TWO AXES.
Between you and the Belgians, therefore, there is just about the same difference as between a dull and sharp axe.
Author’s Introduction to Economic Sophisms
Protection brings together in one single point all the good it does and distributes among the wider mass of people the harm it inflicts.