Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the influence of legislation on commerce and suggests that those who make the laws can be exploited.
P. J. O'Rourke's quote reflects the idea that when the government intervenes in markets through legislation, there is a risk of corruption as legislators may prioritize their personal gain over public interest. The assertion underscores the potential for ethical compromise in politics, implying that the very individuals responsible for creating fair market conditions may themselves become commodities, thus compromising the integrity of the system.
Themes
LegislationPoliticsCorruptionCommerceEthics
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on campaign finance reform, this quote could illustrate the issue of buying influence in politics.
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Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
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I spend my days kneeling in the muck of language, feeling around for gooey verbs, nouns, and modifiers that I can squash together to make a blob of a sentence that bears some likeness to reason and sense.
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Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
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The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.
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