Quote

The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for predation on the property of the producers.

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
Producers
Property
State
Predation
States
Orderly
Systematic
Channel
Provides
Legal

More quotes by Murray Rothbard

Image
The necessary consequence of an egalitarian program is the decidedly inegalitarian creation of a ruthless power elite.
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
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
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
Image
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
Image
On the free market, everyone earns according to his productive value in satisfying consumer desires. Under statist distribution, everyone earns in proportion to the amount he can plunder from the producers.
Murray Rothbard
Image
Who wants good people in government? Good people should be in the private sector. Helping us out, helping themselves out in the private sector. We want schmoes in government. We want people who can't find the doorknob. Why waste productive people, as well as looting the taxpayer?
Murray Rothbard
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The state has typically been a device for producing affluence for a few at the expense of many.
Murray Rothbard
Image
Cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment, subject of course to liability when they are in error.
Murray Rothbard
Image
The more these readjustments are delayed ... the longer the depression will have to last, and the longer complete recovery is postponed.
Murray Rothbard
Image
Never have the world's moneys been so long cut off from their metallic roots.
Murray Rothbard
Image
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
Image
Only the State legally obtains its revenue by coercion.
Murray Rothbard
Image
The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism.
Murray Rothbard
Image
Scratch an egalitarian, and you will inevitably find a statist.
Murray Rothbard
Image
All government operation is wasteful, inefficient, and serves the bureaucrat rather than the consumer.
Murray Rothbard
Image
Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism.
Murray Rothbard
Image
Subjectivism is not an absolute principle it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sound methodology.
Murray Rothbard