Murray Rothbard Quotes

John Stuart was the quintessence of soft rather than hardcore, a woolly minded man of mush in striking contrast to his steel-edged father.

It is the state that is robbing all classes, rich and poor, black and white alike; it is the state that is ripping us all off; it is the state that is the common enemy of mankind.

It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. Anarchists oppose the State because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.

Freedom can run a monetary system as superbly as it runs the rest of the economy. Contrary to many writers, there is nothing special about money that requires extensive governmental dictation.

The clear and logical thinker will always be an 'extremist', and will therefore always be interesting: his pitafall is to go wildly into error. But on the other hand, while the orthodox 'middle-of-the-road' thinker will never get that far wrong, neither will he ever contribute anything either, aside from being generally deadly dull.

The cumulative development of a medium of exchange on the free market — is the only way money can become established. … government is powerless to create money for the economy; it can only be developed by the processes of the free market.

Money is a commodity … not a useless token only good for exchanging; … It differs from other commodities in being demanded mainly as a medium of exchange.

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

The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government. The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support.

The natural tendency of the state is inflation.

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.

Barnes dismissed his own past criticism of the World War II unconditional surrender policy as valid but superficial; for he had learned from General Albert C. Wedemeyer’s book that the murder of Germans and Japanese was the overriding aim of World War II – virtually an Anglo-American scalping party.

[O]ften, only extremists' make sense, while eclectics and moderates are entangled in contradictions.

The problem is that he originated nothing that was true, and that whatever he originated was wrong.