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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.

Murray Rothbard

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Murray Rothbard
Age: 68 †
Born: 1926
Born: March 2
Died: 1995
Died: January 7
Activist
Economist
Essayist
Historian
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Professor
University Teacher
Writer
The Bronx
New York City
Murray Newton Rothbard
Murray N. Rothbard
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More quotes by Murray Rothbard

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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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Never have the world's moneys been so long cut off from their metallic roots.
Murray Rothbard
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It is particularly odd that economists who profess to be champions of a free-market economy, should go to such twists and turns to avoid facing the plain fact: that gold, that scarce and valuable market-produced metal, has always been, and will continue to be, by far the best money for human society.
Murray Rothbard
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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.
Murray Rothbard
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The State thrives on war - unless, of course, it is defeated and crushed - expands on it, glories in it.
Murray Rothbard
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The best way to help the poor is to slash taxes and allow savings, investment, and creation of jobs to proceed unhampered.
Murray Rothbard
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You don't need a treaty to have free trade.
Murray Rothbard
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The State is a gang of thieves writ large - the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society.
Murray Rothbard
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Money ... is the nerve center of the economic system. If, therefore, the state is able to gain unquestioned control over the unit of all accounts, the state will then be in a position to dominate the entire economic system, and the whole society.
Murray Rothbard
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All government operation is wasteful, inefficient, and serves the bureaucrat rather than the consumer.
Murray Rothbard
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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.
Murray Rothbard
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Unlike every other person and institution in society, government obtains its revenue from coercion, from taxation.
Murray Rothbard
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It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
Murray Rothbard
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To those advocates of independent paper moneys who also champion the free market, I would address this simple question: Why don't you advocate the unlimited freedom of each individual to manufacture dollars? If dollars are really and properly things-in-themselves, why not let everyone manufacture them as they manufacture wheat and baby food?
Murray Rothbard
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Cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment, subject of course to liability when they are in error.
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.
Murray Rothbard
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Behind the honeyed but patently absurd pleas for equality is a ruthless drive for placing themselves (the elites) at the top of a new hierarchy of power.
Murray Rothbard
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Unlike the days of the gold standard, it is impossible for the Federal Reserve to go bankrupt it holds the legal monopoly of counterfeiting (of creating money out of thin air) in the entire country.
Murray Rothbard
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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.
Murray Rothbard
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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.
Murray Rothbard