C. S. Lewis and Regime Libertarians

Kevin Vallier suggests the following C.S. Lewis quote as relevant to Lew’s article on Regime Libertarians:

He had been a strict socialist at Oxford. Everything ought to be run by the State; private enterprise and independent professions were for him the great evil. He then went away and became a schoolmaster. After about ten years of that he came to see me. He said his political views had been wholly reversed. You never heard a fuller recantation. He now saw that State interference was fatal. What had converted him was his experience as a schoolmaster of the Ministry of Education – a set of ignorant meddlers armed with insufferable powers to pester, hamper and interrupt the work of real, practical teachers who knew the subjects they taught, who knew boys, parents, and all the real conditions of their work. It makes no difference to the point of the story whether you agree with his view of the Ministry; the important thing is that he held that view. For the real point of the story, and of his visit, when it came, nearly took my breath away. Thinking thus, he had come to see whether I had any influence which might help him to get a job in the Ministry of Education.

Here is the perfect band-wagoner. Immediately on the decision “This is a revolting tyranny”, follows the question “How can I as quickly as possible cease to be one of the victims and become one of the tyrants?”

-C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, pp. 69-70

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7:33 am on July 15, 2005