Quote

Since the State necessarily lives by the compulsory confiscation of private capital, and since its expansion necessarily involves ever-greater incursions on private individuals and private enterprise, we must assert that the state is profoundly and inherently anti-capitalist .

Murray Rothbard

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Greater
Capitalist
Incursions
State
Capital
Confiscation
Lives
Enterprise
Compulsory
Individual
Anti
Assert
States
Individuals
Inherently
Ever
Necessarily
Profoundly
Must
Private
Expansion
Since
Involves

More quotes by Murray Rothbard

Image
The natural tendency of the state is inflation.
Murray Rothbard
Image
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
Image
Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion.
Murray Rothbard
Image
The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism.
Murray Rothbard
Image
States have always needed intellectuals to con the public into believing that its rule is wise, good, and inevitable
Murray Rothbard
Image
Every man must have freedom, must have the scope to form, test, and act upon his own choices, for any sort of development of his own personality to take place. He must, in short, be free in order that he may be fully human.
Murray Rothbard
Image
It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
Murray Rothbard
Image
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.
Murray Rothbard
Image
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.
Murray Rothbard
Image
[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.
Murray Rothbard
Image
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.
Murray Rothbard
Image
Scratch an egalitarian, and you will inevitably find a statist.
Murray Rothbard
Image
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.
Murray Rothbard
Image
Only the State legally obtains its revenue by coercion.
Murray Rothbard
Image
The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for predation on the property of the producers.
Murray Rothbard
Image
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.
Murray Rothbard
Image
I see a great future for gold and silver coins as the currency people may increasingly turn to when paper currencies begin to disintegrate.
Murray Rothbard
Image
You don't need a treaty to have free trade.
Murray Rothbard
Image
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.
Murray Rothbard
Image
Soaking the rich would not only be profoundly immoral, it would drastically penalize the very virtues: thrift, business foresight, and investment, that have brought about our remarkable standard of living. It would truly be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Murray Rothbard