The "state" can be what Bastiat defines it as, and can indeed have very negative impact. No doubt the "state" can be inefficient, unfair, oppressive, etc.
But this is too simplistic of a formulation. The state can also be a benefactor, a driver of positive outcomes.
The state can build highways, provide police and fire department protection, provide for the national defense, work to ensure civil rights and equality, fund medical research where no company would take the risk, land a man on the moon, etc.
The "state" is, like any organization, a reflection of the people behind it. Granted, the "state" can perpetrate the greatest abuses, because of its inherent power, but it can also do enormous good that no other organization could accomplish.
"The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else." - Frédéric Bastiat
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The "state" can be what Bastiat defines it as, and can indeed have very negative impact. No doubt the "state" can be inefficient, unfair, oppressive, etc.
But this is too simplistic of a formulation. The state can also be a benefactor, a driver of positive outcomes.
The state can build highways, provide police and fire department protection, provide for the national defense, work to ensure civil rights and equality, fund medical research where no company would take the risk, land a man on the moon, etc.
The "state" is, like any organization, a reflection of the people behind it. Granted, the "state" can perpetrate the greatest abuses, because of its inherent power, but it can also do enormous good that no other organization could accomplish.
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