Wednesday 7 April 2010

Quote of the day: Liberty or coercion

_quote All men's impulses, when motivated by legitimate self-interest, fall into a harmonious social pattern... 
[It] will depend greatly upon whether men's interests are, in fact, harmonious or antagonistic to one another.
“If they are harmonious, the answer to our problem is to be found in liberty; if they are antagonistic, in coercion.”

        - Frederic Bastiat

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would qualify that and say that the power of coercion should in the first instance rest with those who have suffered injury to property or person.

Peter, this might interest you:
"Pommy git" OK says BSA (Broadcasting Standards Authority)

Anonymous said...

True!

It's a sorry state of affairs where most 'serious minds' plan & promote more coercion to fix the problems created by more coercion in the first place.

Those, "..who consider themselves far advanced, but whom I consider twenty centuries behind the times" [Bastiat]