austrian-school-of-economics

The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable.

A government is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction) and, implied in this, a compulsory territorial monopolist of taxation. That is, a government is the ultimate arbiter, for the inhabitants of a given territory, regarding what is just and what is not, and it can determine unilaterally, i.e., without requiring the consent of those seeking justice or arbitration, the price that justice-seekers must pay to the government for providing this service.

The valuations which result in determination of definite prices are different. Each party attaches a higher value to the good he receives than to that he gives away. The exchange ratio, the price, is not the product of equality of valuation, but on the contrary, the product of a discrepancy in valuation.

Emergencies_ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.

The phenomenon of economic ignorance is so widespread, and its consequences so frightening, that the objective of reducing that ignorance becomes a goal invested with independent moral worth.

Freedom is the foundation for all wonderful things in life.

Government programs didn__ arise because the people demanded them or because the free market was unable to provide needed services. They arose because the politicians found them to be a convenient way to buy votes with other people__ money, a convenient way to enlarge their own power, a convenient way to reward their political cronies, and a convenient way to keep people dependent on government.

In spite of its alluring name, the welfare state stands or falls by compulsion. It is compulsion imposed upon us with the state__ power to punish noncompliance. Once this is clear, it is equally clear that the welfare state is an evil the same as every restriction of freedom.

Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop.

Ultimately, we need to take control over the money supply out of the hands of our governments and make the production of money again subject to the principle of free association. The first step to endorsing and promoting this strategy is to realize that governments do not__ndeed cannot__ulfill any positive role whatever through the control of our money.

Here's something I still can't get over. Amazes and thrills me every time. I'm sitting here and want a certain book. So I search, click, and then I have the book. Every time, my heart does a little leap of joy. What a beautiful world the market is making.

Liberty should be understood as freedom from the government, specifically, freedom from the initiation of physical force by the government.

Government is a gang, but not merely as meritorious as a private gang because it claims legal legitimacy. It pillages and uses violence but under the cover of law, and seeks legitimacy not through competition but through the myth of the social contract.

The government enforces a monopoly over the production and distribution of its alleged 'services' and brings violence to bear against would-be competitors. In so doing, it reveals the fraud at the heart of its impudent claims and gives sufficient proof that it is not a genuine protector, but a mere protection racket.

Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly __eforming_ their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact they__e always busy __eforming_ is an implicit admission that they didn__ get it right the first 50 times.

The profit of the one is the profit of the other.

War has been the necessary and inevitable consequence of the establishment of a monopoly on security.

Money is not an invention of the state. It is not the product of a legislative act. Even the sanction of political authority is not necessary for its existence. Certain commodities came to be money quite naturally, as the result of economic relationships that were independent of the power of the state.