If the bureaucracy is not checked, it will tend to build, in the name of peace, a defense against every conceivable contingency - so much 'security' that 'the secured' are without resources - helpless and hopeless.
Leonard ReadSocialistic practices are now so ingrained in our thinking, so customary, so much a part of our mores, that we take them for granted.
Leonard ReadThe proper and limited use of government is to invoke a common justice and keep the peace - and that is all.
Leonard ReadIs it not obvious that the more complex an economy, the more certainly will governmental control of productive effort exert a retarding influence?
Leonard ReadI would have government defend the life and property of all citizens equally; protect all willing exchange; suppress and penalize all fraud, all misrepresentation, all violence, all predatory practices; invoke a common justice under law; and keep the records incidental to these functions. Even this is a bigger assignment than governments, generally, have proven capable of. Let governments do these things and do them well. Leave all else to men in free and creative effort.
Leonard Read