“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.” – Political economist Frederic Bastiat, The Law [1850]

Scratch a free market idealist or romanticist and you’re likely to find a mercenary weasel underneath. There is something almost refreshing in the unabashed aristocrat.