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… is from page 259 of the 1992 collection of some of William Graham Sumner’s best essays, On Liberty, Society, and Politics [2] (Roger C. Bannister, ed.); specifically, this quotation is from Sumner’s insightful 1894 essay “The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over”:
Can anyone imagine that the masterfulness, the overbearing disposition, the greed of gain, and the ruthlessness in methods, which are the faults of the master of industry at his worst, would cease when he was a functionary of the State, which had relieved him of risk and endowed him with authority? Can anyone imagine that politicians would no longer be corruptly fond of money, intriguing, and crafty when they were charged, not only with patronage and government contracts, but also with factories, stores, ships, and railroads? Could we expect anything except that, when the politician and the master of industry were joined in one, we should have the vices of both unchecked by the restraints of either?
Sumner theorized about policy realistically: unlike the typical advocate of more government intervention, he understood that it’s illegitimate to assume that miracles occur [3].