… is from page 284 of Anthony de Jasay’s great 1998 book, The State (original emphasis):
Under democracy, people are encouraged to try and get, by the political process, what the economic one denies them.
A rough-and-ready guide to one’s ideology is one’s reaction to Jasay’s observation. People who are sympathetic to free markets, as well as people who are unsympathetic, will agree with this observation, but the former will regard this reality as reason to lament a democratic government’s authority to intervene into the economy while the latter will regard this reality about democracy as something to celebrate.
