… is the final paragraph of my favorite essay by one of my all-time favorite thinkers. The essay, written in 1830, is by Thomas Babington Macaulay; its title is “Southey’s Colloquies on Society“:
It is not by the intermeddling of [English poet laureate] Mr. Southey’s idol, the omniscient and omnipotent State, but by the prudence and energy of the people, that England has hitherto been carried forward in civilization; and it is to the same prudence and the same energy that we now look with comfort and good hope. Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will assuredly do the rest.
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Perhaps Thomas Babington Macaulay’s casket would make a better presidential candidate than any person I see in the running.
Gentleman so fresh in shedding from themselves a terror, an oppressor, a tyrant, that they do not so easily forget what transpired. Fast forward a couple hundred years and the descendants clamor for the bribery of entitlements in exchange for the liberties their forefathers risked everything to acquire.
A bribery financed with the descendants own money.
“Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every department of the state.” – Thomas Babington Macaulay
Let us fast-forward to 2011 and change Maccaulay’s statement to fit present day political constituency building exercises by politicos through the mechanism of government.
-The ruling class will best promote their improvement by strictly confining themselves to political constituency building duties, by transferring capital to find its most lucrative political course, price fixing, industry and intelligence demonized, idleness and folly a natural constituency, by attacking property rights, by diminishing law, and by observing strict bureaucracy in every department of the state-.
Long live all Southeyan wooden idol “dialectics of the three”, and of Macaulays showing how one chops them down and thus keeps warm during the times of survivalistic hibernation.
While Mr. Southey is famous for “inventing” the original story of The Three Bears, in matters of science and philosophy he exhibits a limitless faculty of believing without a reason, and of hating without a provocation.
Despite a history replete with signs of the natural progress of society. A rousing bawdy struggle of so many industrious individuals struggling up against wars, taxes, famines, conflagrations, mischievous prohibitions, and more mischievous protections, creating faster than governments can squander, and repairing whatever invaders can destroy.
Ignoring evidence of the wealth of nations increasing, and taking for granted all arts of life approaching nearer and nearer to perfection, in spite of the grossest corruption and the wildest profusion on the part of rulers.
Southey pines for some ideal lesser impoverished Platonic perfection and sees only a host of social ills and inequalities, and seeks to forcibly remedy our unlettered rough cornucopia.
It is only his tastes which are offended, and result in discovering the evil and calamities arising from the collection of wealth in the hands of a few capitalists. His cure being collecting it in the hands of one great capitalist, who has no conceivable motive to use it better than other capitalists, the all-devouring state.
He directly contradicts his own tale of justice where an old woman violating the property the three bachelor bears leaps from an upstairs window and is deservedly injured. Later populists making the villian a young girl with goldilocks, and the three bears a Papa, Mama, & Baby bear to enchant us more fully.
These bears being good natured in Southeys tale and unable to see need for securing their possessions from a trespassing foul vagrant who curses Papa and Mama before declaring her plundereds good from Baby Bear “Just Right”
Jaw droppingly, Southey comes to the conclusion that what is best is for the wise woman of the state to determine which chair, porridge, and bed is “just right”
To this day, most every woman coverts in a goldilocks economy and squanders her hard won suffrage on determining what bears’ handiworks are too hot or cold and must be foregone, and which stolen products are just right and worthy of future confiscation.
I wish people would just come out and say what they mean:
I want to steal your salary because I am too lazy/incompetent/stupid to work for myself.
Or because the government’s interference in the free market has destroyed any opportunities to earn my income legitimately.
Update: I want to steal your salary because I am too lazy/incompetent/stupid to work for myself or because my salary has already been stolen.
Could someone elaborate on what he means by “the price of law”?
Do you have a W2?
??? As in….do I pay taxes? Sure. Care to answer my question without asking a question though?
don?
why the f is a central planning god -macualay -who destroyed local private,philanthropy and student fees funded school education in india and replaced it with a govt run factory to churn out obedient clerks your all time favorite philospher?
the fellow was a hypocrite if there was one.spouting the dangers of state while coming down with a statist hammer when given a chance.why do such imperialists need to be glorified.even stiglitz and krugman have better credibility that such knaves
@dsylexic
Thats a little harsh. Macaulay did support the creation of a partly Anglicised and centralised Indian education system, but he saw this as the best way to achieve eventual Indian independence, not as a way of perpetuating the rule of the British state.
Right or wrong, Macaulay’s espousal of centralisation arose out of his belief that Indians could benefit from European science and philosophy by reading about them in a European language, namely English. Essentially, the idea was that once an elite group of English-educated Indians had been able to read of the achievements of European civilisation, they could then incorporate them into works in their native languages.
That said, you are right to highlight the dichotomy between Macaulay’s unfavourable opinion of the abilities of the state to govern England and his enthusiastic involvement in the management of Britain’s expanding empire in India.
Those on the sidelines can demand moral perfection of those in the thick of battle, but wouldn’t find it so easy to maintain it themselves in the same circumstances.
well, india DID have english schools and english education before macaulay .he rubbished indian literature and once said that all of india’s sanskrit texts could be compared to a 2nd or 3rd standard student’s learning in england.such an ignormus did great danger to millions of indians with his central planning.his paternal idea that the natives could “read of the achievements of European civilisation, they could then incorporate them into works in their native ” was unfounded and based on contempt of local culture rather than knowledge or noble motives
Quotes were sure a lot longer hundreds of years ago than they are now.
Our politicians just aren’t well educated. Wha happened? As they clamor to use the one tool the have to solve every apparent problem and then utterly fail! Our problem is how to uncouple the state and politics. How the state will do it’s job without interfering in people’s lives. A state should expect nothing in return from it’s citizens. We are not wards! The state exists to serve us and it should be grateful for any scrap of praise we throw it’s way. It is not a two way street. I am not dependent on the state for my protection except in protecting me from other states. Serving your country is propaganda for “let me waste your greatest resource in a worthless and probably dangerous endeavor.”
Thank you for calling Macauley to our attention. Reading him has been a delight. But while such truths need to be restated, so too we must move on from them to further truth. And while Cafe Hayek does a splendid job of recycling the truth, there doesn’t seem to be any place in it for any new truths. They are met either with indifference or outright hostility, and anyone asking the others to think is thrown to the wolves.
What “new truths” are you referring to?
For one, Lesvic’s Law, The First Law of Economics and the end of Political Economy: for every action against the market there is an opposite and more than equal reaction, which is why taking from the rich to give to the poor cannot reduce but only increase income inequality and social injustice.
There are others too:
free market monopoly gains do not impair but enhance consumer satisfaction;
and other matters still not well settled and still controversial within the Austrian School, which nobody here but myself wants to talk about.
Any attempt to bring them up and ask the Cafe’s patrons to stop congratulating themselves long enough to actually think about anything is invariably met with the most furious assault.
See below.
I may have made a mistake there, assuming that Greg was referring to me, when, upon closer examination, that doens’t really appear to be the case.
Sorry.
“which nobody here but myself wants to talk about.”
Sheeeee….t mon, all we have to do is just get out of your way and let you run.
I meant to say recycling the old truths
Excellent quote about a universal truth! It is funny how we always keep coming back to these universal truths…once the economic cycle turns from bubble to bust and the new truths that caused the bubble are revealed for the lies that they always were.
“revealed for the lies that they always were”, and the lies they will always be. The central problem is not the lie but the eagerness with which the lie is embraced. The willingness to believe there’s a free lunch is the curse of man.
True that. And, the willingness to suggest that there is a free lunch to be had is the standard method of operation for politicians and other con men.
XY * 2 = 8
What’s with the term “our rulers”? Does he mean “our employees”?
There are no rulers in our government, only elitists who refuse to represent their constituents. I know when this was originally written, but even then we have “representative government”. Unless it is a direct assertion towards the English Monarchy.