Marx not impressed with the idée napoléonienne

The trouble is that a bloated bureaucracy, like pork-barrel public works, also imposes impoverishing obligations on taxpayers. “Taxes are the source of life for the bureaucracy,” Marx explained, “[and] for the whole apparatus of executive power. Strong government and heavy taxes are identical.” These taxes, he added, “rob [the peasant’s] industry of its last resources and aid and complete his powerlessness to resist pauperism.” For the taxpaying class, he added, “strong and unlimited government … has become a vampire that sucks out its blood and marrow.” Not the pinko blather/pidgin-Marxism Pepe is usually peddling.