Economics and the State

Federal Budget

As economist Wilhelm Roepke observed, "The and the concentration of its power, exemplified in the predominance of the budget, have become a cancerous growth gnawing at the freedom and order of society and economy. Surely, no one has any illusions about what it means when the modern state increasingly—and most eagerly before elections, when the voter's favor is at stake—assumes the task of handing out security, welfare, and assistance to all and sundtry, favoring now this and now that group, and when people of all classes and at all levels, not excluding entrepreneurs, get into the habit of looking on the state as a kind of human providence." 1
  1. 1. Roepke, Wilhelm, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market, (South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1960), p. 33.
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