Competition Is Merely The Absence Of Oppression.

The Law Has Been Perverted Through The Influence Of Two Very Different Causes-naked Greed And Misconceived Philanthropy.

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.

You Compare The Nation To A Parched Piece Of Land And The Tax To A Life-giving Rain. So Be It. But You Should Also Ask Yourself Where This Rain Comes From, And Whether It Is Not Precisely The Tax That Draws The Moisture From The Soil And Dries It Up. You Should Also Ask Yourself Further Whether The Soil Receives More Of This Precious Water From The Rain Than It Loses By The Evaporation?

The People Who, During The Election, Were So Wise, So Moral, So Perfect, Now Have No Tendencies Whatever; Or If They Have Any, They Are Tendencies That Lead Downward To Degradation. . . . If People Are As Incapable, As Immoral, And As Ignorant As The Politicians Indicate, Then Why Is The Right Of These Same People To Vote Defended With Such Passionate Insistence?

Here I Encounter The Most Popular Fallacy Of Our Times. It Is Not Considered Sufficient That The Law Should Guarantee To Every Citizen The Free And Inoffensive Use Of His Faculties For Physical, Intellectual And Moral Self-improvement. Instead, It Is Demanded That The Law Should Directly Extend Welfare, Education, And Morality Throughout The Nation. This Is The Seductive Lure Of Socialism. And I Repeat: These Two Uses Of The Law Are In Direct Contradiction To Each Other.