The Welfare State Neutralizes Opponents by Making Them Dependent on Government

Big Government ^ | 12/7/11 | Robert Higgs

[Nachum]

From time immemorial—from Etienne de la Boitie to David Hume to Ludwig von Mises—political analysts have noted that because the number of those in the ruling elite amounts to only a small fraction of the number in the ruled masses, every regime lives or dies in accordance with “public opinion.” Unless the mass of the people, no matter how objectively abused and plundered they may appear to be, believe that the existing rulers are legitimate, the masses will not tolerate the regime’s continuation in power. Nor need they tolerate it, because they greatly outnumber the

[CowboyJay]

Yup. This is how they get their hooks into masses. Bread and circuses.

[Max in Utah]

The Welfare State Neutralizes Opponents by Making Them Dependent on Government

The puppetmasters' strategy in a nutshell, and with the willing assistance of millions of useful idiots, it's working.

[radioone]

"The main element of these trends is the tremendous growth in the number of people (and in their proportion in the population) who are directly dependent on government benefits to a substantial degree."

"Serfdom included the labor of serfs occupying a plot of land owned by a lord of the manor in return for protection and justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence."

[CowboyJay]

""Serfdom included the labor of serfs occupying a plot of land owned by a lord of the manor in return for protection and justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence.""

Would you then say a substantial portion of the 1/3rd of the population that actually does anything productive have been reduced to serfdom or worse by the other 2/3rds, as they are having an increasingly difficult time maintaining their subsistence?