[ScratInTheHat]

It's amazing how as much as things change they stay the same.

Sending out a call to all Democrats to READ THIS PIECE!

[kalee]

Can dems read? ;)

[Uncle Miltie]

Second best political economy book in history, right behind “Free To Choose.”

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[alecqss]

They read. They just use it as instructions on how to create a serfdom.

[the invisib1e hand]

The Road to Serfdom

But won't there be an endless summer?

[MarkeyD]

…I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means.—I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world [but England] where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen?—On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependence on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. Repeal that law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday, and St. Tuesday, will cease to be holidays. SIX days shalt thou labour, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.

—Benjamin Franklin

[Ken522]

... 'Conservative socialism'... has a nice ring to it, similar to "Compassionate Conservatism" ...

[Perdogg]

ping

[Digital Sniper]

Sending out a call to all Democrats to READ THIS PIECE!

I doubt it'd make any difference. Democrats lack the insight to see themselves in anything that damns their neo-socialist tyranny.

[Sam Cree]

“Road to Serfdom,” required reading.

[PGalt]

Thanks very much for posting. Belated WELCOME ABOARD!

Bump for morning read with a good cup of coffee.

[american colleen]

bookmark

[familyop]

Business councils have been around for a very long time, as have unions and the like.

[Tribune7]

There is, in a competitive society, nobody who can exercise even a fraction of the power which a socialist planning board would posses...Who can seriously doubt that the power which a millionaire, who may be my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest bureaucrat possesses who wields the coercive power of the state and on whose discretion it depends how I am allowed to live and work?

Should be posted on the wall of every schoolroom in the U.S. No, the world. Will it? LOLOLOL.

[american colleen]

BTW - Olasky’s “The Tragedy of American Compassion” is well worth the read. And I second Friedman's “Freedom to Choose” which is what made me cross over from liberalism (feelings) to conservatism (common sense) when I was in my early 20s.

[libbylu]

mark

[jim-x]

ping for later

[aruanan]

This book should be read alongside C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. These are both two of the best, most prescient books I’ve ever read.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Bookmark

[wintertime]

ping