In the last place, even when the rulers do not subordinate the interests of the institution to their passions, to their theories, or to their own interests, even when they avoid mutilating it and changing its nature, even when they loyally fulfill, as well as they know how, the supererogatory (distributive) mandate which they have adjudged to themselves, they infallibly fulfill it badly, at least worse than the special and spontaneous bodies for which they substitute themselves, for the structure of these bodies and the structure of the state are different. - Unique of its kind, alone wielding the sword, acting from above and afar by authority and constraints, the State acts over the entire territory through uniform laws, through imperative and minute regulations, by a hierarchy of obedient functionaries, which it maintains under strict instructions.
Hence, it is not adapted to business which, to be well done, needs springs and processes of another species. Its springs, wholly exterior, are insufficient, too weak to support and push undertakings which require an internal motor like private interest, local patriotism, family affections, scientific curiosity, charitable instincts, and religious faith. Its wholly mechanical processes, too rigid and too limited, cannot urge on enterprises which demand of whoever undertakes them delicate and safe handling, supple manipulation, appreciation of circumstances, ready adaptation of means to ends, constant contrivance, the initiative, and perfect independence. On this account the State is a poor head of a family, a poor commercial or agricultural leader, a bad distributor of labor and of subsistence, a bad regulator of production, exchanges, and consumption, a mediocre administrator of the province and the commune, an undiscerning philanthropist, an incompetent director of the fine arts, of science, of instruction, and of worship.[8] In all these offices its action is either dilatory or bungling, according to routine or oppressive, always expensive, of little effect and feeble in returns, and always beyond or apart from the real wants it pretends to satisfy. The reason is that it starts from too high a point therefore extending over too vast a field. Transmitted by hierarchical procedures, it lags along in formalism, and loses itself in "red-tape." On attaining its end and object it applies the same program to all territories alike a program devised beforehand in the Cabinet, all of a piece, without experimental groping and the necessary corrections;* a program which, calculated approximately according to the average and the customary, is not exactly suited to any particular case;* a program which imposes its fixed uniformity on things instead of adjusting itself to its diversity and change;* a sort of model coat, obligatory in pattern and stuff, which the government dispatches by thousands from the center to the provinces, to be worn, willingly or not, by figures of all sizes and at all seasons.
V. Final Results of Abusive Government InterventionOther consequences. - Suppressed or stunted bodies cease to grow. -Individuals become socially and politically incapable. - The hands into which public power then falls. - Impoverishment and degradation of the social body.
