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The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.

The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.

Approximate author period: c. 1930 AD · modern

Meaning not yet available

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Thomas Sowell
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1930 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1930; activity date not established; Wikidata Q553449, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q553449 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 262106; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.