Political Economy for the People

The modes in which a government may impede a nation’s prosperity and wealth, are truly formidable in number and degree. It may subject its people to a merciless system of taxation, as in India, under its former Rajahs and its present rulers. It may, like Charles the Twelfth, drag them from the plough or the loom, to shed their blood to gratify his mad ambition. Or it may employ them in building vast pyramids, as in Egypt; or fantastic palaces, like the Alhambra in Spain, or Versailles in France. Or it may grant monopolies of all articles in most general use to a few pampered court favorites. Such are among the modes by which mankind have been downtrodden and oppressed by their rulers.

But governments sometimes err by a well-intended but vicious intermeddling; for in the body politic, too much regulation is as mischievous as too much medicine in the body natural. It was a conviction of this truth which suggested to the merchants of France their celebrated answer of "laissez nous faire" -- let us alone -- to Colbert, who had inquired how he could serve them. With an intelligent people, the sagacity of individuals will suggest far better schemes for their interest than any sovereign or legislature is likely to do; and, in the estimation of a free people, the forbearance of a government is one of its highest attributes.