Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk

[T]hrift is never popular. . . . If parliaments have historically been the guardians of thrift, they now have turned much rather into its sworn enemies. Nowadays, the political and national parties — maybe not exclusively in our own country, but certainly also here — tend to develop a certain covetousness, almost considered to be dutiful, for all kinds of benefits for their own electorate at the expense of the general public.

Eugen von Böhm-​Bawerk, as quoted by Ludwig von Mises, “The Economist Eugen von Böhm-​Bawerk” (Neue Freie Presse, Vienna, August 27, 1924) — described by Mises as “the last words that Böhm-​Bawerk addressed to Austria’s financial authorities.”