Contrary To Age-old Prejudices, The Wealth Of

There May Have Been Somewhere, As A Few Eighteenth-century Philosophers Dreamed, A Group Of Peaceful Men Who Got Together One Evening After Work And Drew Up A Social Contract To Form The State. But Nobody Has Been Able To Find An Actual Record Of It. Practically All The Governments Whose Origins Are Historically Established Were The Result Of Conquest-of One Tribe By Another, One City By Another, One People By Another. Of Course There Have Been Constitutional Conventions, But They Merely Changed The Working Rules Of Governments Already In Being.

When Alexander The Great Visited The Philosopher Diogenes And Asked Whether He Could Do Anything For Him, Diogenes Is Said To Have Replied: ‘yes, Stand A Little Less Between Me And The Sun.’ It Is What Every Citizen Is Entitled To Ask Of His Government.

The 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.

It Is Possible To Increase Paper-money Income To Any Amount By Debasing The Currency. But Real Income Can Only Be Increased By Working Harder Or More Efficiently, Saving More, Investing More, And Producing More.

Once The Premise Is Accepted That Poverty Is Never The Fault Of The Poor But The Fault Of 'society,' Or Of 'the Capitalist System, Then There Is No Definable Limit To Be Set On Relief, And The Politicians Who Want To Be Elected Or Reelected Will Compete With Each Other In Proposing New 'welfare' Programs To Fill Some Hitherto 'unmet Need.'