Let us suppose that instead of being slow, extravagant, inefficient,
wasteful, unadaptive, stupid, and at least by tendency corrupt, the State
changes its character entirely and becomes infinitely wise, good, disinterested,
efficient, so that anyone may run to it with any little two-penny problem and
have it solved for him at once in the wisest and best way possible. Suppose the
state close-herds the individual so far as to forestall every conceivable
weakness, incompetence; suppose it confiscates all his energy and resources and
employs them much more advantageously all around than he can employ them if left
to himself. My question still remains -- what sort of person is the individual
likely to become under those circumstances? --Albert Jay Nock, author of Our Enemy, the State.