Poor Richard was a Libertarian?

Consider the following ...

On welfare ...

I fear that giving mankind a dependence on anything for support in age or sickness, besides industry and frugality during youth and health, tends to flatter our natural indolence, to encourage idleness and prodigality, and thereby to promote and increase poverty, the very evil it was intended to cure.

On the theory of "trickle-down" economics ...

The rich do not work for one another ... Everything that they or their families use and consume is the produce of the laboring poor ... Our laboring poor receive annually the whole of the clear revenues of the nation.

On the rich exploiting the poor ...

This law [assistance to the poor] was not made by the poor. The legislators were men of fortune ... They voluntarily subjected their own estates, and the estates of others, to a payment of a tax for the maintenance of the poor.

On a minimum wage ...

A law might be made to raise their wages; but if our manufacturers are too dear, they might not vend abroad.

Words of wisdom from non-other than Benjamin Franklin.