“With the collapse of the old welfare states, all this has come to seem decidedly quaint. As the language of antibureaucratic individualism has been adopted, with increasing ferocity, by the Right, which insists on “market solutions” to every social problem, the mainstream Left has increasingly reduced itself to fighting a kind of pathetic rearguard action, trying to salvage remnants of the old welfare state: it has acquiesced with–often spearheaded–attempts to make government efforts more “efficient” though the partial privatization of services and the incorporation of ever-more “market principle,” “market incentives,” and market-based “accountability processes” into the structure of the bureaucracy itself.”

— David Graeber, book The Utopia of Rules

The Utopia of Rules (2015)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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David Graeber55

American anthropologist and anarchist 1961

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“In a world of certainty, the welfare state has only a small role.”

Nicholas Barr (1943) British economist

Source: Economics Of The Welfare State (Fourth Edition), Chapter 4, State Intervention, p. 79

““This task, in fact, requires a new type of politics. The left and right have been as bad as each other. The left has allowed its distrust of markets and endless faith in government to obscure the importance of civil society. The right has been so focused on replacing the state with markets that it has forgotten how to cultivate a trusting society.””

Mark Latham (1961) Australian politician

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“The kind of middle-class mentality which actuates both those responsible for strategy and government has little knowledge of the new psychology and organizing ability of the totalitarian States. The forces we are fighting are governed neither by the old strategy nor follow the old tactics.”

Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) British labour leader, politician, and statesman

"Complacent Conduct of the War", The Times, 3 May 1940, p. 3.
Speech at Stoke-on-Trent, 1 May 1940.

“It is the welfare state that has made capitalism, with all its attendant benefits of economic growth, politically feasible…”

Nicholas Barr (1943) British economist

Source: Economics Of The Welfare State (Fourth Edition), Chapter 15, Conclusion, p. 359

“The United States Government has taken steps to make sure that the constitution of the United States applies to all individuals.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

AP report with lead summarizing of remarks stating "Robert F. Kennedy said yesterday that the United States — despite Alabama violence — is moving so fast in race relations a Negro could be President in 40 years." "Negro President in 40 Years?" in Montreal Gazette (27 May 1961) http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19610527&id=y40tAAAAIBAJ&sjid=F50FAAAAIBAJ&pg=5424,5208719 <br class="br">Context: The Irish were not wanted there [when his grandfather came to Boston]. Now an Irish Catholic is president of the United States … There is no question about it. In the next 40 years a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother has. … We have tried to make progress and we are making progress … we are not going to accept the status quo. … The United States Government has taken steps to make sure that the constitution of the United States applies to all individuals.

“The claim of the State Socialists, however, that this right would not be exercised in matters pertaining to the individual in the more intimate and private relations of his life is not borne out by the history of governments. It has ever been the tendency of power to add to itself, to enlarge its sphere, to encroach beyond the limits set for it; and where the habit of resisting such encroachment is not fostered, and the individual is not taught to be jealous of his rights, individuality gradually disappears and the government or State becomes the all-in-all. Control naturally accompanies responsibility. Under the system of State Socialism, therefore, which holds the community responsible for the health, wealth, and wisdom of the individual, it is evident that the community, through its majority expression, will insist more and more in prescribing the conditions of health, wealth, and wisdom, thus impairing and finally destroying individual independence and with it all sense of individual responsibility.”

Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1854–1939) American journalist and anarchist

¶ 14
State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

“The State has the obligation to prohibit certain business activities in order to protect the lives and welfare of the population.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G16/151/19/PDF/G1615119.pdf?OpenElement. <br class="br">2016, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

“The high tenet of this philosophy (Liberalism) is that Liberty is an endowment from the Creator of every individual man and woman upon which no power, whether economic or political, can encroach, and that not even the government may deny. And herein it challenges all other philosophies of society and government; for all others, both before and since, insist that the individual has no such unalienable rights, that he is but the servant of the state. Liberalism holds that man is master of the state, not the servant; that the sole purpose of government is to nurture and assure these liberties. All others insist that Liberty is not a God-given right; that the state is the master of the man.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Page 4
The Challenge to Liberty (1934)

“The Social Security Act 1986 was one of the most aggressive pieces of legislation in the past seven years. It has helped to destroy the foundations of the welfare state, which was envisaged to provide decency and security through birth, life and death for all people, irrespective of their ability to pay. Now we see means testing writ large throughout the welfare state.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1987/feb/05/social-fund-maternity-and-funeral in the House of Commons (5 February 1987). <br class="br">1980s

“The state is therefore everyone; the rules within the state are laws which safeguard the welfare of all and which must originate from the welfare of all.”

Georg Büchner The Hessian Courier

The Hessian Courier (1834)

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David Graeber55

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