May 22, 2012 11:15AM 

# Why the Worst Get on Top 

By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) 

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Susan Stamberg [reports](http://www.npr.org/2012/05/22/153218450/power-couple-covering-war-and-waging-their-own) on Martha Gellhorn, “one of the first great female war correspondents,” whose marriage to Ernest Hemingway is being dramatized by HBO next week. Gellhorn had a healthy skepticism toward power:

> In 1983, a British TV interviewer posed this loaded question to Gellhorn, then 75 and still gorgeous: “I.F. Stone once described governments as comprised entirely of liars and nothing they say should ever be believed.”
> 
> 
> The response was a typical no-holds-barred Gellhorn opinion: “Quite right. And Tolstoy once said governments are a collection of men who do violence to the rest of us. Between Izzy Stone and Tolstoy, you’ve got it about right.”

The title of this post is of course a chapter title from Hayek’s *[The Road to Serfdom](http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Serfdom-Fiftieth-Anniversary/dp/0226320618)*.

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