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| Adam Smith |
"Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things," from some notes of lectures Adam Smith gave in 1755, some 21 years before the appearance of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
Smith continued, "All governments which thwart this natural course, which force things into another channel, or which endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical."
-RW
(via Liberty Fund, ht David Warsh)
He left out 'hordes of poorly educated third world immigrants'.
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