Murray N. Rothbard

Quotes

• “It would be an instructive exercise for the skeptical reader to try to frame a definition of taxation which does not als...”
• “While liberals are in favor of any sexual activity engaged in by two consenting adults, when these consenting adults eng...”
• “It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consi...”
• “If the bulk of the public were really convinced of the illegitimacy of the State, if it were convinced that the State is...”
• “Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism. Not only are t...”
• “The very term ‘public utility’ … is an absurd one. Every good is useful ‘to the public,’ and almost every good … may be ...”
• “Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged crimina...”
• “The General Theory was not truly revolutionary at all but merely old and oft-refuted mercantilist and inflationist falla...”
• “Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any u...”
• “Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their...”
• “There are two and only two ways that any economy can be organized. One is by freedom and voluntary choice—the way of the...”
• “It is infinitely better to rely on the pursuit of economic interest by landowners or street companies than to depend on ...”
• “Of all the numerous forms that governments have taken over the centuries, of all the concepts and institutions that have...”
• “Whenever someone starts talking about 'fair competition' or indeed, about 'fairness' in general, it is time to keep a sh...”
• “It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over...”
• “I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or prop...”
• “The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism.”
• “No action can be virtuous unless it is freely chosen.”
• “To be moral, an act must be free.”