Quotessence
Home / Authors / Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard

Murray Rothbard Quotes

Economist

Filter quotes by topic

AllStatesGovernmentLibertyLibertarianIfsEconomicEconomicsIndividualMenFree MarketPropertyPeoplePersonsFactsHumansConsumersEconomyGoldInflationNatural

Famous Murray Rothbard Quotes

“[T]he crucial question is not, as so many believe, whether property rights should be private or governmental, but rather whether the necessarily 'private' owners are legitimate owners or criminals. For ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner. All property is therefore always 'private'; the only and critical question is whether it should reside in the hands of criminals or of the proper and legitimate owners.”

PeopleShouldBelieveHandsGovernmentActingRightsGroupsPropertyCriticalCriminalsOwnersCrucialEntityProperty Rights
Author:Murray Rothbard
Create image

“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.”

IfsLooksProblemGovernmentRunningCasesActivityRedAreasCrisisOur SocietyCrucialThreadUnitingRed Thread
Book:For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto
Create image

“Pollution and overuse of resources stem directly from the failure of government to defend private property. If property rights were to be defended adequately, we would find that here, as in other areas of our economy and society, private enterprise and modern technology would come not as a curse to mankind but as its salvation.”

IfsGovernmentTechnologyEconomyRightsModernMankindResourcesAreasEconomicsSalvationPropertyCurseEnterprisePollutionStemPrivate PropertyProperty RightsPrivate EnterpriseModern Technology
Author:Murray Rothbard
Create image

“What do intellectuals and opinion makers get from big government? An increasing number of cushy jobs in the bureaucracy, or in the government-subsidized sector, staffing the welfare regulatory state, and apologizing for its policies, as well as propagandizing for them among the public. To put it bluntly, intellectuals, theorists, pundits, media elites, etc. get to live a life which they could not attain on the free market, but which they can gain at taxpayer expense.”

WellsStatesBigsGovernmentJobsNumbersOpinionMediaPolicyGainsWelfareEtcExpensesMakersElitesApologizingBureaucracyFree MarketTaxpayersBig GovernmentTheoristsPunditsStaffing
Author:Murray Rothbard
Create image

“While big-business leaders and firms can be highly productive, servants of consumers in a free market economy, they are also all too often, seekers after subsidies, contracts, privileges, or cartels furnished by big government. Often, business lobbyists and leaders are the sparkplugs for the statist, interventionist system.”

BigsGovernmentLeaderEconomyPrivilegeConsumersFirmServantProductiveContractsFree MarketSeekersBig BusinessBusiness LeadersBig GovernmentSubsidiesMarket EconomyLobbyistsCartels
Author:Murray Rothbard
Create image

“It is curious that people tend to regard government as a quasi-divine, selfless, Santa Claus organization. Government was constructed neither for ability nor for the exercise of loving care; government was built for the use of force and for necessarily demagogic appeals for votes. If individuals do not know their own interests in many cases, they are free to turn to private experts for guidance. It is absurd to say that they will be served better by a coercive, demagogic apparatus.”

PeopleIfsKnowsUseGovernmentCareTurnsIndividualForceInterestAbilityCasesDivineExerciseBuiltVoteOrganizationRegardAbsurdCuriousAppealsGuidanceExpertsSelflessSantaSanta ClausUse Of Force
Book:Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, Scholar's Edition
Create image

“The libertarian creed...offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy.”

StatesGovernmentPastIndividualUnitedLibertyUnited StatesEconomyEconomicPolicyPromiseOffersBuiltEconomicsTraditionLibertarianPeacefulFulfillmentHeritageForeign PolicyCreedsFree MarketBetter FutureIndividual LibertyMarket Economy
Author:Murray Rothbard
Create image

“If government manages to establish paper tickets or bank credit as money, as equivalent to gold grams or ounces, then the government, as dominant money-supplier, becomes free to create money costlessly and at will. As a result, this 'inflation' of the money supply destroys the value of the dollar or pound, drives up prices, cripples economic calculation, and hobbles and seriously damages the workings of the market economy.”

IfsGovernmentValuesResultsEconomyEconomicPaperEconomicsGoldDollarsCreditManageDamagePoundsTicketsDominantInflationCalculationsMarket EconomyCripplesSuppliers
Author:Murray Rothbard
Create image

“Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible ‘anarchy’, why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?”

IfsWorldMayPersonsDoeStatesGovernmentHouseNationsUnitedCitiesUnited StatesNew YorkUnionsSouthBlockCanadaNew York CityAnarchyManhattanWorld GovernmentNeighbourhoodsNew York StateCanada And The United States
Book:Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, Scholar's Edition
Create image

“We must, therefore, emphasize that 'we' are not the government; the government is not 'us.' The government does not in any accurate sense 'represent' the majority of the people. But, even if it did, even if 70 percent of the people decided to murder the remaining 30 percent, this would still be murder and would not be voluntary suicide on the part of the slaughtered minority. No organicist metaphor, no irrelevant bromide that 'we are all part of one another,' must be permitted to obscure this basic fact.”

PeopleIfsDoeStillsFactsGovernmentPercentDecidedMurderSuicideMajorityMetaphorMinoritiesAccurateObscureIrrelevant
Author:Murray Rothbard
Create image