Government-to-government foreign aid promotes statism, centralized planning, socialism, dependence, pauperization, inefficiency, and waste. It prolongs the poverty it is designed to cure. Voluntary private investment in private enterprise, on the other hand, promotes capitalism, production, independence, and self-reliance.
Henry HazlittThe art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.
Henry HazlittProlonged inflation never 'stimulates' the economy. On the contrary, it unbalances, disrupts, and misdirects production and employment.
Henry HazlittWhen Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: โYes, stand a little less between me and the sun.โ It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.
Henry HazlittThere is a profound contrast between the effects of foreign aid and of voluntary private investment: foreign aid goes from government to government. It is therefore almost inevitably statist and socialistic.
Henry HazlittThe more 'adequate' we make relief, the more people we are going to find willing to get on it and stay on it indefinitely. The more we try to make sure that everybody really in need of relief gets it, the more certain we can be that we are also giving it to people who neither need nor deserve it.
Henry Hazlitt