The quote below illustrates how early the octopus sprawl of government had became obvious to this outsider, albeit a political scientist. In 1922 Leacock described it as This vast new system, so presumably it could be described as new in 1922.
This vast new system, the system of leaning on the government, is spreading like a blight over England and America, and everywhere we suffer from it. Government, that in theory represents a union of effort and a saving of force, sprawls like an octopus over the land. It has become like a dead weight upon us. Wherever it touches industry it cripples it. It runs railways and makes a heavy deficit: it builds ships and loses money on them: it operates the ships and loses more money: it piles up taxes to fill the vacuum and when it has killed employment, opens a bureau of unemployment and issues a report on the depression of industry.
Stephen Leacock - My Discovery of England (1922)
Lessons learned eh?
6 comments:
An octopus has only eight tentacles. Government has many more tentacles but often no testicles.
You could make a good argument from history that the chief aim of Government is to ensure that lessons are not learned.
dearieme - maybe it has enough suckers to do without the testicles.
DJ - yes you could make a very good argument, learn the lesson, clear up the problem and another reason for being is gone.
Can't help but feel that our government of none of the talents has just discovered via Venezuela, that they are utterly irrelevant, not only nationally but worldwide. Good to see our 'leader' stand by the sidelines doing a fairly useful impression of a goldfish.
Octopus or hydra, AKH?
Chris - yes, it's his best impression so far, the irrelevant goldfish, much better than his impression of a prime minister.
James - that's a point, hydra is closer. A colony of them perhaps.
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