Murray Rothbard Quotes

There can be no such thing as 'fairness in taxation.' Taxation is nothing but organized theft, and the concept of a 'fair tax' is therefore every bit as absurd as that of 'fair theft.'

The man who puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the hands of the central government and then says, ‘Limit yourself’; it is he who is truly the impractical utopian.

The State is a gang of thieves writ large - the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society.

The State is, and always has been, the great single enemy of the human race, its liberty, happiness, and progress.

States have always needed intellectuals to con the public into believing that its rule is wise, good, and inevitable

Equality is not in the natural order of things, and the crusade to make everyone equal in every respect (except before the law) is certain to have disastrous consequences.

Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism.

You don't need a treaty to have free trade.

There is one good thing about Marx: he was not a Keynesian.

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.

All government operation is wasteful, inefficient, and serves the bureaucrat rather than the consumer.

It is not the business of the law to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright.

Remember that the minimum wage law provides no jobs; it only outlaws them; and outlawed jobs are the inevitable result.

The best way to help the poor is to slash taxes and allow savings, investment, and creation of jobs to proceed unhampered.

If you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band, and all of the libertarian attitudes will logically fall into place.

The state has typically been a device for producing affluence for a few at the expense of many.

Governmental subsidy systems promote inefficiency in production and efficiency in coercion and subservience, while penalizing efficiency in production and inefficiency in predation.

The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State.

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.

Monetary inflation not only raises prices and destroys the value of the currency unit; it also acts as a giant system of expropriation.

The natural tendency of government, once in charge of money, is to inflate and to destroy the value of the currency.

Falling prices through increased production is a wonderful long-run tendency of untrammeled capitalism.

The necessary consequence of an egalitarian program is the decidedly inegalitarian creation of a ruthless power elite.

Monetary expansion is a massive scheme of hidden redistribution.

The freedom to speak is meaningless without the corollary freedom to keep silent.

Harold, the young kids out there are not going to be willing to go to the barricades in defense of lowered transaction costs.

Scratch an egalitarian, and you will inevitably find a statist.

Cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment, subject of course to liability when they are in error.

I see a great future for gold and silver coins as the currency people may increasingly turn to when paper currencies begin to disintegrate.

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

Gorbachev's stance contrasts admirably with the policy of the sainted Abraham Lincoln, who used massive force and mass murder to force the seceding Southern states to remain in the Union.

Only the State legally obtains its revenue by coercion.

The natural tendency of the state is inflation.

The concept of life and perfection is incompatible. BUT so is death and perfection

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.

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.

The State thrives on war - unless, of course, it is defeated and crushed - expands on it, glories in it.

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.

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.

Never have the world's moneys been so long cut off from their metallic roots.

Inflation, being a fraudulent invasion of property, could not take place on the free market.

Government is a gang of thieves writ large.

Subjectivism is not an absolute principle; it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sound methodology.

...The very nature of interstate war puts innocent civilians into great jeopardy, especially with modern technology.

True #‎ anarchism will be #‎ capitalism , and true capitalism will be anarchism.

Rights might be universal but their enforcement must be local.

The more these readjustments are delayed ... the longer the depression will have to last, and the longer complete recovery is postponed.

What...can the government do to help the poor? The only answer is the libertarian answer: Get out of the way.

All government wars are unjust.

The ingenious slogan that the public debt does not matter because 'we owe it to ourselves' is clearly absurd.