Jag läser om John Stuart Mills mästerverk On Liberty. Den här passagen från slutet av bokens sista kapitel tycker jag mycket om:
The […] most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government, is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power. Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government, causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at becoming the government. If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them, became departments of the central administration; if the employés of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in the name.
Den nästföljande meningen förtjänar ett eget blockcitat, då den påminner mig om min debatt med Nätverket för evidensbaserad policy:
And the evil would be greater, the more efficiently and scientifically the administrative machinery was constructed – the more skilful the arrangements for obtaining the best qualified hands and heads with which to work it.
Citaten är nog kapitlets bästa, då det i övrigt är ägnat åt hur man undviker att behöva följa vad som står skrivet i resten av boken.
