Notwithstanding what some regard as the institutionalization of compassion, the transfer society quashes genuine virtue. Redistribution of income by means of government coercion is a form of theft. Its supporters attempt to disguise its essential character by claiming that democratic procedures give it legitimacy, but this justification is specious. Theft is theft, whether it be carried out by one thief or by a hundred million thieves acting in concert. And it is impossible to found a good society on the institutionalization of theft.
Robert HiggsThe legacy of the New Del was, more than anything else, a matter of ideological change. Henceforth, nearly everyone would look to the federal government for solutions to problems great and small, real and imagined, personal as well as social.
Robert HiggsIt is a sound interpretive rule...that anything that cannot be accomplished except with the aid of threats or the actual exercise of violence against unoffending persons cannot be beneficial to one and all.
Robert HiggsBy adopting programs to distribute substantial amounts of income, a nation guarantees that its government will become more powerful and invasive in other ways.
Robert HiggsLiberty in the United States will never be reestablished so long as elites and masses alike look to the president to perform supernatural feats and therefore tolerate a virtually unlimited exercise of presidential power. Until we can restore limited, constitutional government in this country, God save us from great presidents.
Robert Higgs