Willing Slaves Of The Welfare State

Read this for the view of someone who was alive before the Welfare State existed, who doesn't believe in 'solutions', and who is aware that for every perceived gain, there is an often unnoticed loss. It's by CS Lewis.

I do not like the pretensions of Government, the grounds on which it demands my obedience, to be pitched too high. I don't like the medicine-man's magical pretensions nor the Bourbon's Divine Right. This is not solely because I disbelieve in magic and in Bossuet's Politique. I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every Government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands 'Thus saith the Lord," it lies, and lies dangerously...

The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good -- anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence, the new name "leaders" for those who were once "rulers". We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, "Mind your own business." Our whole lives ARE their business.

(via R. Andrew Newman)