Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
French economist Bastiat's thinking was very important to free market economic thinking. His authorship of The Law is something everyone should read in school. It is small enough that a 6th grader could read it without losing interest.
In our era of entitlement thinking, not new by the way, and gimme, gimme, gimme "economics," nobody seems to remember this teensy thing:
IN ORDER TO GET FROM THE GUBMENT, THE GUBMENT HAS TO TAKE FROM SOMEONE ELSE.
Yes, the word is TAKE.
How many people would walk around their neighborhoods, knocking on doors, and asking their neighbors to just give them money for whatever the purpose? Most people would never do that.
But they would line up all night for the proverbial gubment cheese. Or to sidle up to the gubment sow and start suckling. Not everyone is good at doing that either! But a lot do!
Bastiat's idea that the gubment lives at the expense of everyone is so well said it can hardly be added to.
But consider this: there are a couple of classes of entitlement in our society.
There are those who think they don't need to work to receive. That group is growing in number, percentage and in sound. These are the gimme, gimme, gimme types. They are becoming more and more forward and more and more demanding. They believe in the cliche FREE LUNCH.
But there is another more insidious, and very burgeoning entitlement class. This group is also growing in number and percentage, but they are being very quiet. This group is composed of our "royalty." I define our "royalty" as those who have "served" in gubment and think that doing so should afford them a retirement and every benefit under the sun for the rest of their lives. Not only them, but their families too!
To the first group I would say, as did Bastiat, that there is no such thing as a FREE LUNCH.
To the second group I would say that there is no such thing as a FREE LIFE.
TELL ME, WHICH GROUP BOTHERS YOU THE MOST?
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