but then go ahead and distribute the money in a manner that has 100 times more to do with office politics than actual productivity. Of course, the alternative

but then go ahead and distribute the money in a manner that has 100 times more to do with office politics than actual productivity. Of course, the alternative to this (i.e. distribution by a government) would be the distribution of wealth that has an infinite number of times more to do with _actual_ politics. Office politics is at least distributed, i.e. there are several companies that distribute their own individual wealth according to some non-perfect system. But some will be more perfect than others, and hopefully natural selection will reward those more than others. Government redistribution does not have that characteristic. But not only is it missing the only piece of redeeming value in any distribution system, it is not in essence any different than the private redistribution system. That is, there are still people deciding how to spend money. It is true that people are flawed; but they are no less flawed because we call them government. In fact they are more so: we have removed the only incentive to improve redistribution that they may have had. But then it is not easy to silence the voices of those who ask whether it is not paradoxical to entrust the nation's welfare to the decisions of voters whom the law itself considers incapable of managing their own affairs; whether it is not absurd to make those people supreme in the conduct of government who are manifestly in need of a guardian to prevent them from spending their own income foolishly." - Ludwig von Mises