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Economics Quotes

“It is true that the welfare-statists are not socialists, that they never advocated or intended the socialization of private property, that they want to 'preserve' private property-with government control of its use and disposal. But that is the fundamental characteristic of fascism.”

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Book:Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
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“Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.”

PeopleNeedsCountryUseAmericaNationsLibertyTroubleGroupsEconomicMovementDemandEconomicsBlameLibertarianRussiaGermanyMinoritiesSovietJustificationDictatorshipNaziBusinessmanBourgeoisieNazi GermanyScapegoatSoviet RussiaMinority Groups
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.”

ValuesSocialCausesLibertyPrinciplesEconomicDependsConsequenceEconomicsVoteMajorityStructureTyrannyInstancePrimariesVotersUnlimitedRight To VoteSocial SystemsImplementingMajority Rule
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.”

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Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“Lobbying' is the activity of attempting to influence legislation by privately influencing the legislators. It is the result and creation of a mixed economy-of government by pressure groups. Its methods range from mere social courtesies and cocktail-party or luncheon "friendships" to favors, threats, bribes, blackmail.”

GovernmentSocialResultsPartyLibertyEconomyGroupsInfluenceEconomicCreationActivityEconomicsPressureMethodThreatMereFavorsRangeLegislationAttemptingCourtesyCocktailsLegislatorsBribeBlackmailLobbyingCocktail PartiesPressure GroupsMixed Economy
Book:The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought
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“Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force - and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism.”

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Book:The Virtue of Selfishness
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“No individual or private group or private organization has the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals or groups and to compel them to act against their own voluntary choice. Only a government holds that power. The nature of governmental action is: coercive action. The nature of political power is: the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury-the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death.”

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Book:Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
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“Unlike the Marxists, the Nazis did not advocate public ownership of the means of production. They did demand that the government oversee and run the nation's economy. The issue of legal ownership is secondary; what counts is the issue of control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property-so long as the state res...erves to itself the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property.”

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Author:Leonard Peikoff
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“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.”

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Author:Murray Rothbard
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“The diversity of mankind is a basic postulate of our knowledge of human beings. But if mankind is diverse and individuated, then how can anyone propose equality as an ideal? Every year, scholars hold Conferences on Equality and call for greater equality, and no one challenges the basic tenet. But what justification can equality find in the nature of man? If each individual is unique, how else can he be made 'equal' to others than by destroying most of what is human in him and reducing human society to the mindless uniformity of the ant heap?”

IfsMenYearsHumansMadeIndividualChallengesHuman BeingsLibertyGreaterEconomicMankindEqualDiversityUniqueIdealsEconomicsDestroyingScholarDiverseJustificationConferencesProposeAntsReducingHuman SocietyMindlessNature Of ManUniformity
Book:Man, Economy, and State, Scholar's Edition
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“Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion - the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals - the technique of the marketplace.”

WayTwoStatesUseIndividualLibertyMillionsEconomicModernActivityEconomicsArmyLibertarianTechniqueCooperationLibertarianismFree MarketMarketplaceCoercionTwo WaysInvolvingIndividual LibertyTotalitarian StateCoordinating
Book:Milton Friedman on Freedom: Selections from The Collected Works of Milton Friedman
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“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalistic System was to debauch the currency. . . Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million can diagnose.”

MenWayMeanDoeSaidLawForceProcessSidesLibertyMillionsEconomicEconomicsDestructionBasesBest WayOne ManCurrencyInflationEconomic FreedomBanking SystemMonetary SystemCentral Banking
Book:The Economic Consequences of the Peace: The Economist
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“Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.”

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Author:Barry Goldwater
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“You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. ... Government contains impure ingredients - as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you. ... government practices deceptive advertising. And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud. ... in a nutshell: government should be against the law. Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.”

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Author:P. J. O'Rourke
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“The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to egalitarians, to people obsessed with fairness, to American presidential candidates in the year 2000 - to everyone who believes that wealth should be redistributed. And that message is clear and concise: Go to Hell.”

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Book:Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics
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“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle.”

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Author:P. J. O'Rourke
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“The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves. You can talk about 'social justice' all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get re-elected. That is not social justice or any other kind of justice.”

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Book:Controversial Essays
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“People who are very aware that they have more knowledge than the average person are often very unaware that they do not have one-tenth of the knowledge of all of the average persons put together. In this situation, for the intelligentsia to impose their notions on ordinary people is essentially to impose ignorance on knowledge.”

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Author:Thomas Sowell
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“Three-fifths to two-thirds of the federal budget consists of taking property from one American and giving it to another. Were a private person to do the same thing, we'd call it theft. When government does it, we euphemistically call it income redistribution, but that's exactly what thieves do - redistribute income. Income redistribution not only betrays the founders' vision, it's a sin in the eyes of God.”

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Author:Walter E. Williams
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“Government is necessary, but the only rights we can delegate to government are the ones we possess. For example, we all have a natural right to defend ourselves against predators. Since we possess that right, we can delegate authority to government to defend us. By contrast, we don't have a natural right to take the property of one person to give to another; therefore, we cannot legitimately delegate such authority to government.”

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Author:Walter E. Williams
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“The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn't come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree.”

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Book:More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well
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“Communism and socialism is [sic] seductive. It promises us that people will contribute according to ability and receive according to needs. Everybody is equal. Everybody has a right to decent housing, decent food and affordable medical care. History should have taught us that when we hear people talk this stuff - watch out!”

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Author:Walter E. Williams
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“Try this thought experiment. Pretend you're a tyrant. Among your many liberty-destroying objectives are extermination of blacks, Jews and Catholics. Which would you prefer, a United States with political power centralized in Washington, powerful government agencies with detailed information on Americans and compliant states or power widely dispersed over 50 states, thousands of local jurisdictions and a limited federal government?”

TryingStatesGovernmentPoliticalUnitedPowerfulLibertyUnited StatesEconomicInformationEconomicsCatholicJewExperimentsTyrannyLocalsObjectivesAgencyDestroyingTyrantsFederal GovernmentPolitical PowerExterminationJurisdictionOver 50Government AgenciesPowerful Government
Author:Walter E. Williams
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“How you make it in this world, for the most part, depends more on what you do as opposed to whether people like or dislike you. In order to produce a successful life, one must find ways to please his fellow man. That is, find out what goods and services his fellow man values, and is willing to pay for, and then acquire the necessary skills and education to provide it.”

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Author:Walter E. Williams
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“What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences. When you hear someone say that he doesn't trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he's really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one.”

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Author:Walter E. Williams
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