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Welfare State Quotes

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Welfare State Quotes

“Welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic have discovered that largesse to losers does not reduce their hostility to society, but only increases it. Far from producing gratitude, generosity is seen as an admission of guilt, and the reparations as inadequate compensations for injustices - leading to worsening behavior by the recipients.”

DoeStatesSidesGratitudeBehaviorIncreaseGuiltInjusticeGenerosityWelfareLoserBoth SidesHostilityCompensationInadequateAdmissionWelfare StateReparationsLargesse
Author:Thomas Sowell
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“Doing good with other people's money has two basic flaws. In the first place, you never spend anybody else's money as carefully as you spend your own. So a large fraction of that money is inevitably wasted. In the second place, and equally important, you cannot do good with other people's money unless you first get the money away from them. So that force - sending a policeman to take the money from somebody's pocket - is fundamentally at the basis of the philosophy of the welfare state.”

PeopleFirstsTwoImportantStatesPhilosophyForceBasesWelfarePocketsFlawsPolicemenDoing GoodFractionsWelfare StateSecond Place
Book:Tax limitation, inflation and the role of government
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“The modern welfare state, highly touted as soaking the rich to subsidize the poor, does no such thing. In fact, soaking the rich would have disastrous effects, not just for the rich but for the poor and middle classes themselves. For it is the rich who provide a proportionately greater amount of saving, investment capital, entrepreneurial foresight, and financing of technological innovation that has brought the Unites States to by far the highest standard of living - for the mass of the people - of any country in history.”

PeopleDoeCountryStatesFactsPoorClassRichGreaterModernMiddleEffectsAmountHighestMassStandardsInnovationInvestmentSavingWelfareMiddle ClassTechnologicalEntrepreneurialForesightStandards Of LivingWelfare StateFinancingSoaking
Author:Murray Rothbard
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“How can we appraise a proposal if the terms hurled at our ears can mean anything or nothing, and change their significance with the inflection of the voice? Welfare state, national socialism, radical, liberal, conservative, reactionary and a regiment of others ... these terms in today's usage, are generally compounds of confusion and prejudice. If our attitudes are muddled, our language is often to blame. A good tonic for clearer thinking is a dose of precise, legal definition.”

IfsThinkingMeanStatesTodayLanguageVoiceTermAttitudeEarsPrejudiceBlameDefinitionsConservativeSocialismConfusionRadicalWelfareSignificancePreciseProposalCompoundsDoseReactionariesUsageWelfare StateAppraise
Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower
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“In Europe there's an dangerous growth of ultra xenophobia which is pretty threatening to any one who remembers the history of Europe... and an attack on the remnants of the welfare state. It's hard to interpret the austerity-in-the-midst-of-recession policy as anything other than attack on the social contract.”

HardStatesRememberSocialGrowthDangerousPolicyEuropeWelfareMidstContractsThreateningRecessionsXenophobiaWelfare StateRemnantsAusterityUltrasSocial Contract
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“The New Deal never rethought the draconian racist immigration restriction policies of the 20s, of course, but its electoral base rested significantly on "ethnic" voters, whose activism was both hemmed in and rewarded by the Democrats. Southern and Eastern Europeans were included as secondary leaders of the new industrial unions, and as entitled citizens qualified for social security, unemployment compensation, and fair labor standards protections, even as workers of color were largely left out of key areas of the welfare state.”

StatesCoursesLeftSocialDealsLeaderSecurityPolicyColorKeysCitizensStandardsAreasFairsLaborUnionsDemocratWorkersProtectionActivismImmigrationWelfareRacistVotersSouthernEntitledUnemploymentEasternSocial SecurityQualifiedCompensationRestrictionLeft OutWelfare StateNew DealDraconian
Author:David Roediger
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“The conservative revolution that Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan's central insight - that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing the pie - contained a good deal of truth.”

StatesDealsGrowingEconomicPolicyRevolutionDemocraticConservativeInsightWelfareObsessedMakersPieComplacentWelfare StatePolicy MakersTraction
Book:The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
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“The leadership knows that you cannot solve the issues of China's future with the means of the past. The demographic consequences of the one-child policy, the build-up of the welfare state, the jobs for 7 million university graduates every year, the immense corruption: Even some Western governments would have to scramble to find solutions to such problems.”

KnowsYearsMeanChildrenStatesProblemGovernmentJobsPastMillionsIssuesPolicySolutionsConsequenceWesternUniversityCorruptionChinaSolveWelfareGraduatesImmenseDemographicsWelfare State
Author:Ai Weiwei
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“In the last thirty years we have gained enormous amount of freedom (everywhere, except perhaps in places like Burma or North Korea), but we lost quite a large amount of security. Because of all sorts of reasons, because of globalization which stripped the nation state of a large part of its sovereignty away, because of the dismantling of the so-called welfare state. As a result, people feel simultaneously much freer and much more insecure.”

PeopleFeelsYearsStatesReasonLastsLostNationsResultsSecurityAmountEnormousWelfareThirtyInsecureSovereigntyGlobalizationKoreaNorth KoreaThirty YearsWelfare StateBurma
Author:Zygmunt Bauman
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“The fact that refugees traveled through six other countries, like former Yugoslavia, Macedonia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France, Germany, Holland, is because they like our social benefits. They like our welfare state. They know which country to pick. They're not going to stay in Hungary or in Estonia. They come to Germany, to Holland. And people sense that those are not the real refugees. And our government has spent billions of euros on them, and the Dutch people know.”

PeopleKnowsRealCountryStatesFactsGovernmentSocialSixBenefitsPicksBillionsFormerFranceWelfareGermanyOther CountriesTraveledRefugeeDutchEuroWelfare StateSwitzerlandHollandAustriaHungaryYugoslaviaEstoniaMacedonia
Author:Geert Wilders
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“John Stuart Mill believed that the only acceptable reason for government to limit a person's liberty was to prevent him from causing unacceptable harm to others. Mill was not a libertarian, but many libertarians are quick to cite this principle when arguing against a regulation that they oppose. And I believe most thoughtful libertarians are prepared to embrace something fairly close to Mill's harm principle. But accepting that principle implies accepting many of the institutions of the modern welfare state that libertarians have vigorously opposed in the past, such as safety regulation.”

BelievePersonsStatesReasonGovernmentPastI BelieveLibertyAcceptingPrinciplesModernLimitsSafetyInstitutionsEmbracePreparedHarmLibertarianArguingWelfareThoughtfulAcceptableRegulationMillsWelfare StateCiting
Author:Robert H. Frank
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“We have a number of very powerful women in the world now - Mrs. [Angela] Merkel, who the Germans call Mutti. What did we call Mrs. [Margaret] Thatcher? When she was minister of education, she stopped the children's free school milk. This may sound quaint, but after the war we were such a malnourished nation that part of the founding of the welfare state were public health initiatives. Every little schoolchild got milk. Mrs. Thatcher stopped it. They called her "Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher."”

WorldMayChildrenLittlesWarStatesSchoolNationsSoundPowerfulNumbersMinistersWelfareMilkInitiativeFoundingVery PowerfulPublic HealthPowerful WomenWelfare StateAngelaQuaintMaggieMrs Thatcher
Author:Hilary Mantel
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“Reagan said that government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem. And he was going to dismantle that government. Well, long story short, he failed to do that. He built up the military to a much greater status, more people in it, and actually more employees after the end of the Reagan administration. And, to achieve his objectives, he did some of the very same things that Trump is doing to achieve his. What Ronald Reagan really wanted to dismantle was the welfare state. And he had limited success in doing that.”

PeopleWellsLongSaidEndsStatesStoriesProblemGovernmentWantedGreaterAchieveMilitaryTrumpSolutionsBuiltObjectivesAdministrationWelfareEmployeeWelfare StateLong Story
Author:Brian Balogh
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“But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”

IfsGivingPersonsDoeGovernmentLawLibertyEconomicCrimeCitizensBenefitsEconomicsLibertarianExpensesFreedom And LibertyFreedom LibertyProperty RightsWelfare StatePlunderEconomic FreedomLaw CourtsLegal Rights
Book:The Law
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“There are few genuine conservatives within the U.S. political system, and it is a sign of the intellectual corruption of the age that the honorable term 'conservatism' can be appropriated to disguise the advocacy of a powerful, lawless, aggressive and violent state, a welfare state for the rich dedicated to a lunatic form of Keynesian economic intervention that enhances state and private power while mortgaging the country's future.”

CountryStatesAgeFormPoliticalTermPowerfulRichEconomicIntellectualCorruptionGenuineViolentWelfareAggressiveDedicatedDisguiseHonorableInterventionConservatismLunaticPolitical SystemsAdvocacyWelfare State
Book:The Culture of Terrorism
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“Before the nineteen-seventies, most Republicans in Washington accepted the institutions of the welfare state, and most Democrats agreed with the logic of the Cold War. Despite the passions over various issues, government functioned pretty well. Legislators routinely crossed party lines when they voted, and when they drank; filibusters in the Senate were reserved for the biggest bills; think tanks produced independent research, not partisan talking points. The "D." or "R." after a politician's name did not tell you what he thought about everything, or everything you thought about him.”

ThinkingWellsWarStatesGovernmentPassionNamesLinesPartyTalkingIssuesColdPoliticianRepublicanResearchLogicIndependentInstitutionsBillsDemocratVariousAcceptedDespiteWelfareSenateCold WarSeventiesTanksDrankReservedPartisansLegislatorsNineteenWelfare StateFilibuster
Author:George Packer
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“It seems that wherever the Welfare State is involved, the moral precept, "Thou shalt not steal," becomes altered to say: "Thou shalt not steal, except for what thou deemest to be a worthy cause, where thou thinkest that thou canst use the loot for a better purpose than wouldst the victim of the theft."”

StatesUseSeemsPurposeCausesLibertyMoralInvolvedVictimWorthyLibertarianStealingWelfareLibertarianismTheftAlteredWelfare StateWorthy Causes
Author:F. A. Harper
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“Because it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both. If you have a welfare state, if you have a state in which every resident is promises a certain minimal level of income, or a minimum level of subsistence, regardless of whether he works or not, produces it or not. Then it really is an impossible thing.”

IfsStatesJobsCertainLevelsImpossibleOne ThingProducePromiseImmigrationIncomeWelfareMinimumResidentsWelfare StateImpossible ThingsSubsistence
Author:Milton Friedman
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