Liberty Is The Essential Basis,

A Certain Amount Of Taxes Is Of Course Indispensable To Carry On Essential Government Functions. Reasonable Taxes For This Purpose Need Not Hurt Production Much.

All Subsidy Measures, All Schemes To Redistribute Income Or To Force Peter To Support Paul, Are One-eyed As Well As Shortsighted. They Get Their Immediate Appeal By Focusing Attention On The Alleged Needs Of Some Particular Group Of Intended Beneficiaries. But The Inevitable Victims - Those Who Are Going To Be Asked To Pay For The New Handout In Increased Taxes (which Directly Or Indirectly Means Almost Everybody Else) - Are Left Out Of Account. Only One-half Of The Problem Has Been Seen. The Cost Of The Proposed Solution Has Been Overlooked.

The First (lesson) Which We Meet Again And Again In History, Is That Once The Dole Or Similar Relief Programs Are Introduced, They Seem Almost Inevitably - Unless Surrounded By The Most Rigid Restrictions - To Get Out Of Hand. The Second Lesson Is That Once This Happens The Poor Become More Numerous And Worse Off Than They Were Before, Not Only Because They Have Lost Self-reliance, But Because The Sources Of Wealth And Production On Which They Depend For Either Doles Or Jobs Are Diminished Or Destroyed.

The Essential Function Of The State Is To Maintain Peace, Justice, Law, And Order, And To Protect The Individual Citizen Against Aggression, Violence, Theft, And Fraud.

Yet It Ought To Be Clear That A Minimum Wage Law Is, At Best, A Limited Weapon For Combatting The Evil Of Low Wages, And That The Possible Good To Be Achieved By Such A Law Can Exceed The Possible Harm Only In Proportion As Its Aims Are Mode.