“Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”

— Frédéric Bastiat

The State in Journal des débats (1848) par. 5.20.
Variant: The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavours to live at the expense of everyone else.

Original

L'État, c'est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s’efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde.

fr
Repris dans l'édition intégrale Guillaumin 1863, sous le titre L'État.
Variant: L'État c'est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s'efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde.

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Frédéric Bastiat 33

French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and… 1801–1850

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“This leads to my next myth—the myth that government can spend money at nobody’s expense. What was really involved in that last story was that somehow the local people do not pay out the money coming down from Washington somebody else does. Of course, the truth is that the money makes a round trip between Florida and Washington, and there is a discount taken off for cash as it passes through Washington. Some of you may remember that wonderful description of government by the French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who said that government is that fiction whereby everybody believes that he can live at the expense of everybody else.”

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