Recipients of transfers tend to become less self-reliant and more dependent on government payments. When people can get support without exercising their own abilities to discover and respond to opportunities for earning income, those abilities atrophy. People forget - or never learn in the first place - how to help themselves, and eventually some of them simply accept their helplessness.
Robert HiggsIf anarchists are idealists, they may simply be likened to someone who finds himself swimming in a cesspool and, rather than paddling about looking for the area with the least amount of floating faeces, seeks to climb out of the pool completely.
Robert HiggsAbetted by misguided or co-opted intellectuals, the rulers weave a cloak of legitimacy to disguise their theft and hence to ease their extraction of wealth from the rightful owners.
Robert HiggsIn U.S. history, war has served as an important diversionary tactic, causing the people at large to shift their attention away from the state's own criminality and toward real or fictitious devils abroad. Wars have therefore proved to be extremely useful in propping up the political class and preserving it from the public resistance and rebellion that might otherwise have arisen.
Robert Higgs