The power of making laws was long vested in those—and still is vested in their descendants—who followed no trade but war, and knew no handicraft but … - Thomas Hodgskin

As we learn the existence of our own bodies from seeing and feeling them, and as we see and feel the bodies of others, we have precisely similar grounds for believing in the individuality or identity of other persons, as for believing in our own identity. The ideas expressed by the words mine and thine, as applied to the produce of labour, are simply then an extended form of the ideas of personal identity and individuality.

[A]ll governments have frequently used this power to delude and defraud their subjects. They have either mixed the precious metals with baser materials, or they have divided them into smaller pieces, certifying at the same time by their public seals, or by the busts of their chiefs, that the coin remained of the same value.

The journeymen, however, know their own interest better than it is known to the legislator; and they would be all richer if there were not an idle capitalist in the country.