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The Liberal Complaint
In all functional ways there is no significant difference between the Socialists of the 19th century and the Liberals and Progressives of the 20th and 21st centuries. They all have the same complaints about their more normative American enemies.
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
— Frédéric Bastiat
The Law
Bastiat died of tuberculosis of tuberculosis at the age 49 in 1850 yet his position is still valid, even unto this benighted day in a far lesser and darker age age of Man’s descent into damnation.
Tags: America | Bastiat | History | Liberals | Politics | Progressives | Socialists
