Government Intervention Quotes
This is a catenation of two separate quotes: (1) “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” —Perth, Scotland, 28 May 1948, in Churchill, Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 & 1948 (London: Cassell, 1950), 347. (2) ("Equal sharing of miseries"): Spoken in the House of Commons on October 22, 1945: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries".
This quotation is very important because it illustrates a big difference between English Conservatives and American conservative (Republicans). In America, the Conservatives were committed to having the government regulate and control the private morality of citizens—particularly in matters of sex. English conservatives, like the Prime Minister, saw this as an improper intrusion of big government.
Many people had come to the conclusion that capitalism as it then existed was not sufficient to correct some of the serious inequities in society. They saw that socialism tended more to focus on those. However, they also saw in socialism per se, as it was than advocated, many other problems. Steffens seems to be the first person to describe that type of person, in this case, himself.
His antigovernment views were so extreme that he even opposed having the government control poisonous and other dangerous consumer products and instead leave it to the free market where the consumer would have to make safety decisions often without information or worse with deceptively false information.
