ABSTRACT
There is mounting evidence that government is big rather than strong; that it is fat and flabby rather than powerful; that it costs a great deal but does not achieve much. There is mounting evidence also that the citizen less and less believes in government and is increasingly disenchanted with it. Indeed, government is sick—and just at the time when we need a strong, healthy, and vigorous government. Government, it was widely believed, would produce a great many things for nothing. This belief was, in effect, only one facet of a much more general illusion from which the educated and the intellectuals in particular suffered. Belief in government was thus largely a romantic escape from politics and responsibility. The record over these last thirty or forty years has been dismal. Government has proved itself capable of doing only two things with great effectiveness. It can wage war and can inflate the currency.
