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The Enormous Power of Government
As long as these ideas prevail, it
is clear that the responsibility of government is enormous. Good
fortune and bad fortune, wealth and destitution, equality and
inequality, virtue and vice—all then depend upon political
administration. It is burdened with everything, it undertakes
everything, it does everything; therefore it is responsible for
everything.
If we are fortunate, then
government has a claim to our gratitude; but if we are
unfortunate, then government must bear the blame. For are not our
persons and property now at the disposal of government? Is not
the law omnipotent? In creating a monopoly of education, the
government must answer to the hopes of the fathers of families
who have thus been deprived of their liberty; and if these hopes
are shattered, whose fault is it?
In regulating industry, the
government has contracted to make it prosper; otherwise it is
absurd to deprive industry of its liberty. And if industry now
suffers, whose fault is it?
In meddling with the balance of
trade by playing with tariffs, the government thereby contracts
to make trade prosper; and if this results in destruction instead
of prosperity, whose fault is it? In giving protection instead of
liberty to the industries for defense, the government has
contracted to make them profitable; and if they become a burden
to the taxpayers, whose fault is it? Thus there is not a
grievance in the nation for which the government does not
voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it surprising, then, that
every failure increases the threat of another revolution in
France?
And what remedy is proposed for
this? To extend indefinitely the domain of the law; that is, the
responsibility of government. But if the government undertakes to
control and to raise wages, and cannot do it; if the government
undertakes to care for all who may be in want, and cannot do it;
if the government undertakes to support all unemployed workers,
and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to lend interest-
free money to all borrowers, and cannot do it; if, in these words
that we regret to say escaped from the pen of Mr. de Lamartine,
"The state considers that its purpose is to enlighten, to
develop, to enlarge, to strengthen, to spiritualize, and to
sanctify the soul of the people"—and if the government
cannot do all of these things, what then? Is it not certain that
after every government failure— which, alas! is more than
probable—there will be an equally inevitable revolution?
Clark Simmons, Webmaster
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