Walter Lippmann on the State
29 April 2006
The Editor, New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
Charles Michener thinks that America needs government again to pursue "an elaborate program for ... national renewal" (Letters, April 29).
Rousing words. But Walter Lippmann, who closely observed the very elaborate New Deal, issued this warning in 1937 about expansive government: "it is evident that the more varied and comprehensive the regulation becomes, the more the state becomes a despotic power as against the individual. For the fragment of control over the government which he exercises through his vote is in no effective sense proportionate to the authority exercised over him by the government."*
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* Walter Lippmann, The Good Society (Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1937), p. 106.
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Sunday February 11, 2007 at 7:03am