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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.

Murray Rothbard

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Murray Rothbard
Age: 68 †
Born: 1926
Born: March 2
Died: 1995
Died: January 7
Activist
Economist
Essayist
Historian
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Writer
The Bronx
New York City
Murray Newton Rothbard
Murray N. Rothbard
States
Regard
Libertarian
Persons
Blue
Brown
Best
Mass
Organized
Eternal
Red
Monarchical
Public
Supreme
Dictatorial
State
Everywhere
Aggressor
Whether
Property
Libertarians
White
Democratic
Aggressors

More quotes by Murray Rothbard

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If we look at the black record of mass murder, exploitation, and tyranny levied on society by governments over the ages, we need not be loath to abandon the Leviathan State and . . . try freedom.
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Essentially, I mean the almost self-evident fact that individuals, ethnic groups, and races differ among themselves in intelligence and in many other traits, and that intelligence, as well as less controversial traits of temperament, are in large part hereditary.
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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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States have always needed intellectuals to con the public into believing that its rule is wise, good, and inevitable
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All government operation is wasteful, inefficient, and serves the bureaucrat rather than the consumer.
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All government wars are unjust.
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All interstate wars intensify aggression – maximize it … some wars are even more unjust than others. In other words, all government wars are unjust, although some governments have less unjust claims.
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It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
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Positivism eliminates any kind of natural law principle - for example, that there are economic laws which can be transgressed only at your peril. With positivism, there is a tendency to leap into ad hoc economic theory.
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The more these readjustments are delayed ... the longer the depression will have to last, and the longer complete recovery is postponed.
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[Professional politicians] don't mind if price controls cause shortages of health care. In fact, they welcome the prospect, because then they can impose rationing they can impose priorities, and tell everyone how much of what kind of medical care they can have. And besides, ... there's that deeply satisfying rush of power.
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The natural tendency of the state is inflation.
Murray Rothbard
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The costs of government are bound to be much higher than those of the free market. . .The State cannot calculate well and therefore cannot gauge its costs accurately.
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Monetary inflation not only raises prices and destroys the value of the currency unit it also acts as a giant system of expropriation.
Murray Rothbard
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Monetary expansion is a massive scheme of hidden redistribution.
Murray Rothbard
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The State is, and always has been, the great single enemy of the human race, its liberty, happiness, and progress.
Murray Rothbard
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Unlike every other person and institution in society, government obtains its revenue from coercion, from taxation.
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We libertarians are not the spokesmen for any ethnic or economic class we are the spokesmen for all classes, for all of the public we strive to see all of these groups united, hand-in-hand, in opposition to the plundering and privileged minority that constitutes the rulers of the State.
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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.
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After the Volcker Fund collapsed, I got another grant from the Lilly Endowment to do a history of the U.S., which I worked on from 1962-66. The original idea was to take the regular facts and put a libertarian assessment on everything.
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