1840s, The Young American (1844)
“We must ask, not whether an anarcho-capitalist society would be safe from a power grab by the men with the guns (safety is not an available option), but whether it would be safer than our society is from a comparable seizure of power by the men with the guns. I think the answer is yes. In our society, the men who must engineer such a coup are politicians, military officers, and policemen, men selected precisely for the characteristic of desiring power and being good at using it. They are men who already believe that they have a right to push other men around - that is their job. They are particularly well qualified for the job of seizing power. Under anarcho-capitalism the men in control of protection agencies are selected for their ability to run an efficient business and please their customers. It is always possible that some will turn out to be secret power freaks as well, but it is surely less likely than under our system where the corresponding jobs are labeled 'non-power freaks need not apply.”
Source: The Machinery of Freedom, 1973, pp. 123-124
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
David D. Friedman 12
American economist, physicist, legal scholar, and libertari… 1945Related quotes
@femfreq (Nov 14, 2014) https://web.archive.org/web/20150403150541/https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/533445611543363585
Twitter
The Amazing Mr. Lutterworth (1958)
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Man of Letters
[The Way Things Ought to Be, Pocket Books, October 1992, 52, 978-0671751456, 92028659, 26397008, 1724938M]
Speech delivered at Luther College, Regina, Saskatchewan, March 16, 1973.
“Men of power have not time to read; yet men who do not read are unfit for power”
On Benjamin Disraeli, in his own book, 'Debts of Honour
1980s