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

More quotes by Murray Rothbard

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The state has typically been a device for producing affluence for a few at the expense of many.
Murray Rothbard
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You don't need a treaty to have free trade.
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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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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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
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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
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If we look around, then, at the crucial problem areas of our society - the areas of crisis and failure - we find in each and every case a “red thread” marking and uniting them all: the thread of government. In every one of these cases, government either has totally run or heavily influenced the activity.
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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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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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...The very nature of interstate war puts innocent civilians into great jeopardy, especially with modern technology.
Murray Rothbard
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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.
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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Only the State legally obtains its revenue by coercion.
Murray Rothbard
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Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism.
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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The more the government intervenes to delay the market's adjustment, the longer and more grueling the depression will be, and the more difficult will be the road to complete recovery.
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.
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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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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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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