Governmental policies for the limited purpose of saving the most unfortunate citizens from destitution have merged into governmental policies for the unlimited purpose of redistributing income and wealth among virtually all groups, rich as well as poor.

as Mancur Olson has observed, governmental redistributions typically “have arbitrary rather than egalitarian impacts on the distribution of income- more than a few redistribute income from lower to higher income people.” Many governmental activities are “of no special help to the poor” and many others “actually harm them.”

from the 1987 Crisis and Leviathan by Robert Higgs

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