The bottom line is that to govern is to rule, and to rule is to enslave. No one is surprised when slaves produce no more than will allow them to escape punishment. This deplorable state of affairs has gone so far, that students who refuse to cheat, who want only the grade they can earn, are a vanishing breed. When one of these throwbacks does appear in the corridors of our state schools, the ridicule received is savage. An adult with a work ethic is so rare that businesses assume that a certain percentage of their resources will go to deliberate waste, outright embezzlement, and theft.
Retailers call it shrinkage.
As a corporate restaurant manager, I simply knew that a portion of my food and liquor cost was going to people who thought I was hopelessly naive for being upset about it. Make no mistake. If the bureaucrats and statists ever cured the illnesses they claim to be treating, they'd be out of a job. Now, I'm not claiming that all statists are deliberately encouraging our society's illness for their personal gain. I think we all know that a good number of them are simply pursuing personal gain with no thought to the consequences at all.