Murray Rothbard Quotes
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All government wars are unjust.
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The natural tendency of the state is inflation. This statement will shock those accustomed to viewing the state as a committee of the whole nation ardently dispensing the general welfare, but I think it nonetheless true.
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I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself (or, with Lord Acton, as the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity.
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Throughout history governments have been chronically short of revenue. The reason should be clear: unlike you and me, governments do not produce useful goods and services that they can sell on the market; governments, rather than producing and selling services, live parasitically off the market and off society.
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The State thrives on war - unless, of course, it is defeated and crushed - expands on it, glories in it.
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The more consistently Austrian School an economist is, the better a writer he will be.
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There can be no truly moral choice unless that choice is made in freedom; similarly, there can be no really firmly grounded and consistent defense of freedom unless that defense is rooted in moral principle.
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Instead of a bumbling and inefficient tool of society, the radical [libertarian] sees the State itself, in its very nature, as coercive, exploitative, parasitic, and hence profoundly antisocial. The State is, and always has been, the great single enemy of the human race, its liberty, happiness, and progress.
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Libertarians regard the state as the Supreme, the eternal, the best organized aggressor against the persons and property of the mass of the public. All states everywhere, whether democratic, dictatorial, or monarchical, whether red, white, blue or brown.
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If a man has the right to self-ownership, to the control of his life, then in the real world he must also have the right to sustain his life by grappling with and transforming resources; he must be able to own the ground and the resources on which he stands and which he must use. In short, to sustain his human right.
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It is clearly absurd to limit the term 'education' to a person's formal schooling.
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Rule by the statist elite is not benign or simply a matter of who happens to be in office: it is rule by a growing army of leeches and parasites battening off the income and wealth of hard-working Americans, destroying their property, corrupting their customs and institutions, sneering at their religion.
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Harold, the young kids out there are not going to be willing to go to the barricades in defense of lowered transaction costs.
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Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium.
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On the free market, everyone earns according to his productive value in satisfying consumer desires. Under statist distribution, everyone earns in proportion to the amount he can plunder from the producers.
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Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible ‘anarchy’, why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?
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Placing the state in charge of moral principles is equivalent to putting the proverbial fox in charge of the chicken coop.
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The freedom to speak is meaningless without the corollary freedom to keep silent.
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This, by the way, is the welfare state in action: Its a whole bunch of special interest groups screwing consumers and taxpayers, and making them think they're really benefiting.
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I want to make it clear what I am not saying. I am not saying that fiat money, once established on the ruins of gold, cannot then continue indefinitely on its own.
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I see a great future for gold and silver coins as the currency people may increasingly turn to when paper currencies begin to disintegrate.
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The fundamental axiom, then, for the study of man is the existence of individual consciousness
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All government operation is wasteful, inefficient, and serves the bureaucrat rather than the consumer.
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Pollution and overuse of resources stem directly from the failure of government to defend private property. If property rights were to be defended adequately, we would find that here, as in other areas of our economy and society, private enterprise and modern technology would come not as a curse to mankind but as its salvation.
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True # anarchism will be # capitalism , and true capitalism will be anarchism.
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I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. Anarchists oppose the State because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
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The State is a gang of thieves writ large - the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society.
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The concept of life and perfection is incompatible. BUT so is death and perfection
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If government manages to establish paper tickets or bank credit as money, as equivalent to gold grams or ounces, then the government, as dominant money-supplier, becomes free to create money costlessly and at will. As a result, this 'inflation' of the money supply destroys the value of the dollar or pound, drives up prices, cripples economic calculation, and hobbles and seriously damages the workings of the market economy.
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Gorbachev's stance contrasts admirably with the policy of the sainted Abraham Lincoln, who used massive force and mass murder to force the seceding Southern states to remain in the Union.
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