The Return to Laisser Faire

Sir Ernest Benn

From the author:

In this book my endeavor will be to do two things for the benefit of students of politics and citizenship. I shall set myself out to discredit Socialism, but that is the least worthy and the least inspiring of my aims. I shall do it, if I succeed, not so much by a study and analysis of Socialism, as by a study and explanation of the working of economic laws and the structure of civilized society—the study, in a word, of the science of civilization and Individualism. I shall write without reference to political party programs, without reference to election results, and with a sole desire to abide by principles.

My earnest hope is that these pages will be read by that great mass of serious, perplexed electors eager only for the right, unconcerned with party labels, but much concerned to see this old country take its proper place once more at the head of the civilized nations of the world. "The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it."

The Return to Laisser Faire by Sir Ernest Benn
Meet the Author
Sir Ernest Benn
Mises Daily Sir Ernest Benn
The 19th century was filled with enthusiasm for passing on to the future something better, for leaving behind more than it inherited, for providing for the children of the next generation. The 20th century has said: to hell with posterity.
Mises Daily Sir Ernest Benn
Our management of money is advocated as a way to save us from the rigors of the natural law, but it would appear that enormous inequality, indeed injustice, may result from these strange modern conceptions of the proper functions of a national treasury.
Mises Daily Sir Ernest Benn
I understand that in the United States there are still those who think that the machinery of government can be used as a substitute for personal responsibility on the part of the governed. This idea, as we know only too well in Britain, is the open road to disaster. It changes persons with responsibilities into robots with rights.
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References

D. Appleton & Comany, New York, 1929