On Liberty · ¶149

The third, and most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government, is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power. Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government, causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at becoming the government. If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them, became departments of the central administration; if the employés of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government…

John Stuart Mill · Walter Scott Publishing edition, with W. L. Courtney’s introduction · Gutenberg #34901
John Stuart Mill · Walter Scott Publishing edition, with W. L. Courtney’s introduction · Gutenberg #34901
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.