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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
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The Bronx
New York City
Murray Newton Rothbard
Murray N. Rothbard
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Inflation
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More quotes by 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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Having examined the nature of fractional reserve and of central banking, and having seen how the questionable blessings of Central Banking were fastened upon America, it is time to see precisely how the Fed, as presently constituted, carries out its systemic inflation and its control of the American monetary system.
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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In short, the early receivers of the new money in this market chain of events gain at the expense of those who receive the money toward the end of the chain, and still worse losers are the people (e.g., those on fixed incomes such as annuities, interest, or pensions) who never receive the new money.
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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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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It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
Murray Rothbard
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The natural tendency of the state is inflation.
Murray Rothbard
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The concept of life and perfection is incompatible. BUT so is death and perfection
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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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
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The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for predation on the property of the producers.
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
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...The very nature of interstate war puts innocent civilians into great jeopardy, especially with modern technology.
Murray Rothbard
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Only the State legally obtains its revenue by coercion.
Murray Rothbard
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Monetary expansion is a massive scheme of hidden redistribution.
Murray Rothbard
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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.
Murray Rothbard
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John Stuart was the quintessence of soft rather than hardcore, a woolly minded man of mush in striking contrast to his steel-edged father.
Murray Rothbard
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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.
Murray Rothbard