William Voegeli on Spending & the Welfare State

[Valin]

The Claremont Institute:

3/2/12

 

To advance the mission of the Claremont Review of Books, the Claremont Institute will be holding quarterly Claremont Review of Books Forums. The first such forum featured a lecture by Senior Editor William Voegeli with an introduction by Editor Charles Kesler. The full remarks can be downloaded as an audio file here.

 

William Voegeli's remarks on spending and the welfare state were a follow-up to his essay, "Enough Already," in the Winter 2011-12 issue of the Claremont Review of Books. He is a Senior Editor of the Claremont Review of Books and a visiting scholar at Claremont McKenna College's Henry Salvatori Center. An expert on the growth of the welfare state, he is the author of Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State

 

 

Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State

William Voegeli

 

 

A local talk show host (Joe Soucheray) once asked the questions, "What do you want?" "How much is enough?"

Sadly I suspect the answer is...How much do you have?

[Pepper]

@Valin

 

It's never enough. Regardless of area, a taker will always demand more from the maker.

[Valin]

@Valin

 

It's never enough. Regardless of area, a taker will always demand more from the maker.

 

I am of the opinion that we are rapidly reaching to point where we the people are going to have to make a decision on this. It's not so much that big top down government is so expensive (and this is no small thing), but it doesn't work....ie a hand up not a way of life.

[Pepper]

@Valin

Agree - the question is whether tipping point occurs first leading to major disruption(s) or do we regain our senses in time to slowly recover?

[Valin]

@Valin

Agree - the question is whether tipping point occurs first leading to major disruption(s) or do we regain our senses in time to slowly recover?

 

Ask me in 30 years.

 

Once again this leads me to a point I have been making (badly) that we are in the middle of a major change in history....think the end of the middle ages.

[raygun]

Valin,

 

For the life of me I do not understand your last comment. To wit:

 

 

How to Identify Legal Plunder

 

 

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

 

Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.

 

The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.

 

Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it. - Bastiat, Frédéric,

The Law

;June, 1850

 

 

A "hand up", and something 'bout the middle-ages?

[Valin]

@raygun

 

Point is the world completely change between (say) 1400 & 1500. the old ways of thinking, ruling, what was expected changed. Cheaper knowledge (Gutenberg press), new ways of thinking about where people stood in society (Protestant reformation) and a whole new continent to explore and use (Columbus's voyage). That is what I am talking about. And I believe this is the kind (size) of change we are in the midst of.