"Government has a legitimate function, but the private sector has one too, and it is superior. In other words, people are better than institutions"
About this Quote
A neat conservative syllogism dressed up as common sense: government can be tolerated, but only as a second-best substitute for the real engine of human flourishing, the private sphere. Cal Thomas frames the argument as modest - government has "a legitimate function" - then pulls the rug out with a ranking claim: the private sector is "superior". That pivot matters. It signals that legitimacy is conditional, while superiority is assumed, almost moral.
The subtext is less about efficiency than authority. Calling "institutions" inferior to "people" smuggles in a suspicion that public systems inevitably drift toward coercion, waste, and abstraction. "People", by contrast, connotes voluntarism: choice, charity, entrepreneurship, family, church, community. It's a rhetorical move that collapses the messy diversity of the private sector (corporations, monopolies, predatory markets) into an idealized citizen, then pits that citizen against a faceless state.
As a journalist formed in late-20th-century American culture wars and the Reagan-era faith in markets, Thomas is writing inside a long argument about who deserves trust. His line is calibrated for audiences uneasy about bureaucracy, taxation, and centralized programs - and it borrows the emotional charge of populism while landing on an explicitly pro-market conclusion. The quote works because it offers a flattering identity: if you distrust institutions, you're not cynical; you're simply pro-human. The risk is that it treats "people" and "institutions" as opponents, when institutions are how people scale care, rights, and accountability beyond the reach of individual goodwill.
The subtext is less about efficiency than authority. Calling "institutions" inferior to "people" smuggles in a suspicion that public systems inevitably drift toward coercion, waste, and abstraction. "People", by contrast, connotes voluntarism: choice, charity, entrepreneurship, family, church, community. It's a rhetorical move that collapses the messy diversity of the private sector (corporations, monopolies, predatory markets) into an idealized citizen, then pits that citizen against a faceless state.
As a journalist formed in late-20th-century American culture wars and the Reagan-era faith in markets, Thomas is writing inside a long argument about who deserves trust. His line is calibrated for audiences uneasy about bureaucracy, taxation, and centralized programs - and it borrows the emotional charge of populism while landing on an explicitly pro-market conclusion. The quote works because it offers a flattering identity: if you distrust institutions, you're not cynical; you're simply pro-human. The risk is that it treats "people" and "institutions" as opponents, when institutions are how people scale care, rights, and accountability beyond the reach of individual goodwill.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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