In Against the State, Lew Rockwell explains how the constant expansion of state power is often justified as a necessary means of achieving the dreams and visions of voters. In its relentless pursuit of power, the state has a strong incentive to focus on the problems that are likely to resonate most deeply with voters and, hence, most likely to persuade them to vest increasing control of their lives in the state.

Since the job that was actually assigned to [the Fed] by Congressman Carter Glass back in 1913 is now vestigial and long gone, and the financial system has been flooded with massive liquidity for decades on end, it might well be time to declare victory and let the free market take care of jobs, growth, inflation and prosperity. — David Stockman

August 26, 1938: Austria was under Nazi rule, and Czechoslovakia was feared to be next. The world was on the brink of a new war. In Paris, a room full of famed economists met to discuss the future of liberalism, the ideology that had shaped the West for the previous hundred years. Held in Europe and attended mostly by Europeans, it was at the behest of an American journalist.