The Man Versus The State

Thesis: Herbert Spencer feared that growing government intervention in the economy and abandonment of laissez-faire would lead to socialism and slavery.

• Extension of this policy will create the idea that the government should intervene whenever something is wrong.
• It makes the assumption that it is the duty of the state to deal with all evils and secure all benefits
• Every extension of regulative policy involves an addition of regulatory agents, giving increasing power to the growing organization of officials
• Increasing power of a growing administrative organization is accompanied by decreasing power of the rest of society to resist its growth and control
• If this trend continues, it will lead to state-assumption of land, communication, and industry; private forms of which will die away
• These socialists are not thinking of accompanying pains, only promised benefits
• They are not regarding these evils as the ill-working of human nature
• Each member of the community will be a slave to the community as a whole.
• Slavery is the ultimate outcome