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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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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
History
Sells
Producing
Government
Selling
Services
Reason
Market
Unlike
Live
Short
Governments
Produce
Goods
Clear
Throughout
Society
Sell
Chronically
Rather
Useful
Revenue

More quotes by Murray Rothbard

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The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism.
Murray Rothbard
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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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Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism.
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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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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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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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Cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment, subject of course to liability when they are in error.
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Absolute freedom need not be lost as the price we must pay for the advent of civilization men are born free, and need never be in chains. Man may achieve liberty and abundance, freedom and civilization.
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Subjectivism is not an absolute principle it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sound methodology.
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.
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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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You don't need a treaty to have free trade.
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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The natural tendency of the state is inflation.
Murray Rothbard
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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
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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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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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All government wars are unjust.
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...The very nature of interstate war puts innocent civilians into great jeopardy, especially with modern technology.
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Governmental subsidy systems promote inefficiency in production and efficiency in coercion and subservience, while penalizing efficiency in production and inefficiency in predation.
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