Gordon Tullock

“The modern state is largely a mechanism for transferring funds from one person to another. What we economists call public goods are provided by the state but are now only a part of it. The United States is not as far along in this procedure as many other countries, but in our case the federal government pays out in various types of transfers a significant percent of the amount it collects in taxes. Most of the European countries are even more dominated by the legacy of Bismarck.”

“The dominant form of government in the world today is dictatorship. Further throughout history, dictatorship has been the commonest form of government, indeed, for much of history the only form of government in the world.”

“What is important will be manipulated by the government.”

“A government does not, in general, just go about the world doing good. It has to be pushed into it.”

“Today we have great laboratories and individual research projects employing thousands of scientists, but the interrelation between these giant laboratories, and between them and the myriad of individual investigators, is still one of voluntary, and almost unconscious, co-operation. It is not based on central planning or hierarchic organization. But as any economist knows, the fact that there is no one who can give commands does not mean that there is no social organization.”