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View Full Version : Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay



Chris
11-20-2013, 06:27 PM
A bit of history from ‘Nothing Is so Galling to a People as a Meddling Government’ (http://bastiat.mises.org/2013/11/nothing-is-so-galling-to-a-people-as-a-meddling-government/):


...One of liberty’s most insightful defenders against the ever-encroaching state was Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay. Statesman, historian and writer, “the most influential of the British classical liberals” advocated freedom, contrasted with the failings and abuses of government control.

Macaulay defended what he opened his History of England with: “the authority of law and the security of property were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and of individual action never before known…from the auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity from which the annals of human affairs had furnished no example.” In particular, he devastated statism in “Southey’s Colloquies on Society,” still relevant today.

Washington today lectures Americans on what is true, fair, ethical, and moral. But Macaulay asked “is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people…themselves?” The answer: “[W]e see no reason for thinking that the opinions of the magistrate on speculative questions are more likely to be right than those of any other man.” Where individuals really agree on such issues, government is unnecessary; where we don’t, government simply imposes one group’s will on others.

...Government is handicapped in directing our opinions because “Government…carries on controversy, not with reasons, but with threats and bribes…instead of a contest between argument and argument, we have a contest between argument and force…in which truth can be victorious only by accident.”

...Behind government’s efforts to bend its citizens into better ones lies a confusion between the voluntary arrangements of society and the involuntary ones imposed by the state. Civilization “is not [created] by…the omniscient and omnipotent State, but by the prudence and energy of the people…rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will assuredly do the rest.”

Unfortunately, government as undertaker of everything cannot perform its essential job. That is defending liberty and property. But dictating to the unwilling violates liberty and giving to some beyond what is voluntary violates property. That is why, despite do-gooders’ self-congratulations, “Nothing is so galling to a people…as a paternal, or in other words, a meddling government.”...

Captain Obvious
11-20-2013, 08:29 PM
This would then apply today to big gulps in NY and doorknobs in Canada.

But where is the public outrage now?

Chris
11-20-2013, 09:12 PM
It applies from the small of big gulps and door knobs on up to the large of Obamacare, Quantitative Easing and much more.

There is "outrage" in those who discuss politics, economics, etc--and in those who can't stand to see others discuss.