State Solutions Always Lead to New State Solutions

Why State Solutions Always Lead to New State Solutions:

.. The opponent of liberalism (the statist) describes a problem, invariably with roots in a government infringement of freedom. In response, he prescribes more government interference with freedom, at which point the liberal interjects that the best and only just solution is the repeal of the culpable state power. The statist replies that this will not do because the liberal’s proposal won’t solve every related problem and may even reveal hitherto overlooked problems ..

.. the politicians and bureaucrats have made a royal mess of things. Then liberals are faulted for not being able to clean it up tidily with the wave of a hand. That they can’t make everything right at once is then held against liberalism.

.. That the freedom approach can’t make everything new overnight, or even in the next few years, is hardly an argument against it. The fact is, what we’re doing now is causing misery, insecurity, and advancing serfdom. To add insult to injury, that very misery and insecurity are made to justify more measures that will only add to the misery and insecurity, not to mention the serfdom ..

The only hopeful alternative is freedom, the progressive removal of the many levels of state interference with our peaceful activities .. It is not liberalization that will have created those problems. On the contrary, persistent liberalization will solve them.

.. While we should advocate quick abolition of intervention, abolition all at once is unlikely to happen .. But while liberalization is likely to be gradual, it doesn’t follow that we should advocate gradualism. As the great anti-slavery activist William Lloyd Garrison understood, “Gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice.”