Ben Franklin Predicted the Welfare State

“I fear the giving mankind a dependence on anything for support in age or sickness, besides industry and frugality during youth and health, tends to flatter our natural indolence, to encourage idleness and prodigality, and thereby to promote and increase poverty, the very evil it was intended to cure.”

— Ben Franklin, quoted in Benjamin Franklin: An American Life  by Walter Isaacson

 

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