Once the principle of government is admitted, any notion of restraining government power is illusory. Even if, as liberals have proposed, a government limited its activities to the protection of existing private property rights, the question of how much security to produce would arise. Motivated by self-interest and the disutility of labor, but with the power to tax, a government agent's answer will invariably be the same: To maximize expenditures and to minimize production. The more money one can spend and the less one must work, the better off one will be.
- — Hans-Hermann Hoppe