The more power you possess, the more insecure you feel. The paranoia of power drives people towards absolutism. But it doesnt work. Far from curing them of the conviction that they are threatened and beleaguered, greater control breeds greater paranoia.
On Friday, the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, claimed that business is under political attack on a scale it has not faced since the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was speaking at the Institute of Directors, where he was introduced with the claim that we are in a generational struggle to defend the principles of the free market against people who want to undermine it or strip it away. A few days before, while introducing Osborne at the Conservative party conference, Digby Jones, former head of the Confederation of British Industry, warned that companies are at risk of being killed by regulation from big government and of drowning in the mire of anti-business mood music encouraged by vote-seekers. Where is that government and who are these vote-seekers? They are a figment of his imagination.
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