Through the knotholes
FRIEDMAN'S LAW serves to explain why paying tax represents such dismal and dete- riorating value for money. The state offers a wide range of services, supplying them whether we want them or not. At one end of the range is the defence of the realm. We need this one, and although we could try to see off our foes for ourselves, or hire mercenaries, the state is the most economic supplier, as Adam Smith would have acknowledged. This service, though, has been dwindling away as others are invented or expanded. Its scope and its staff have been greatly reduced, and the present gov- ernment is busily planning to manage with less. At the other end of the range is the biggest and fastest-growing line of all: wel- fare. This now accounts for a third of all public spending. The sage has likened it to throwing banknotes at a barn door in the hope that some of them will get through the knotholes. These transfers of £100 bil- lion out of the taxpayer's pocket, by way of the state, which charges for handling them, offer the most perfect instance of other people's money being spent on other peo- ple. Along the way it has created a whole new class of salaries and vacancies for wel- fare apparatchiks, among whom (or so I see from this week's list) Irish lesbians are especially welcome. I have nothing against Irish lesbians, but when it comes to making them welcome, it does seem to me that the choice as well as the cost should be mine.
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