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Quotation of the Day…

… is from pages 127-128 of Henry Hazlitt’s posthumously published 1997 volume, Is Politics Insoluble?:

Libertarians are learning to their sorrow that big businessmen cannot necessarily be relied upon to be their allies in the battle against extension of governmental encroachments.  The reasons are many.  Sometimes businessmen will advocate tariffs, import quotas, subsidies, and restrictions on competition, because they think, rightly or wrongly, that these government interventions will be in their personal interest, or in the interest of their companies, and are not concerned whether or not they may be at the expense of the general public.  More often, I think, businessmen advocate these interventions because they are honestly confused, because they just don’t realize what the actual consequences will be of the particular measures they propose, or perceive the cumulative debilitating effects of growing restrictions of human liberty.

Perhaps most often of all, however, businessmen today acquiesce in new government controls out of sheer timidity.

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