The American economist and historian Robert Higgs noted long ago that during the 20th century the various wars, and the various declared equivalents of war, such as against drugs and viruses, regularly led to permanent expansions of state power. Power is the ability to coerce physically, war being the pre-eminent coercion. There has to be some reason that citizens of the UK and US are coerced to pay about 40 percent of GDP for the wars and other activities of the state, whereas a century ago they paid about 10 percent. Further, the state’s recently expanding regulation of many private activities — literally a million regulations promulgated by the US federal government, for example — calls on citizens to pay indirectly, too. In 1950, 5 percent of American occupations required a license from the state. Now it is 30 percent, and includes jobs such as hair-braiders and interior decorators. As the cowboy humorist Will Rogers said in the 1920s, before all this was evident: ‘Those who complain about the high cost of government should be glad we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.’
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