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The State Thrives On War - Unless, Of Course, It Is Defeated And Crushed - Expands On It, Glories In It.
-Murray Rothbard
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The State Thrives On

Murray Rothbard
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The State Thrives On War - Unless, Of Course, It Is Defeated And Crushed - Expands On It, Glories In It.

Understanding the Quote: "the state thrives on war - unless, of course, it is defeated..."

This quote by Murray Rothbard reflects deeply on the theme of peace. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Peace, War, Glory, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Murray Rothbard interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Murray Rothbard

Murray Rothbard is celebrated for insightful thoughts on peace and war. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Peace
War
Glory
More From Murray Rothbard
Free-market Capitalism Is A Network Of Free And Voluntary Exchanges In Which Producers Work, Produce, And Exchange Their Products For The Products Of Others Through Prices Voluntarily Arrived At.
Liberty
Economics
Produce
The Libertarian Sees The State As A Giant Gang Of Organized Criminals, Who Live Off The Theft Called "taxation" And Use The Proceeds To Kill, Enslave, And Generally Push People Around. Therefore, Any Property In The Hands Of The State Is In The Hands Of Thieves, And Should Be Liberated As Quickly As Possible. Any Person Or Group Who Liberates Such Property, Who Confiscates Or Appropriates It From The State, Is Performing A Virtuous Act And A Signal Service To The Cause Of Liberty.
Hands
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Absolute Freedom Need Not Be Lost As The Price We Must Pay For The Advent Of Civilization; Men Are Born Free, And Need Never Be In Chains. Man May Achieve Liberty And Abundance, Freedom And Civilization.
Men
Civilization
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The Greatest Danger To The State Is Independent Intellectual Criticism.
Independent
Intellectual
Criticism
[w]hich Category Of Crimes Does The State Pursue And Punish Most Intensely? [t]hose Against Private Citizens Or Those Against Itself? The Gravest Crimes In The State's Lexicon Are Almost Invariably Not Invasions Of Private Person Or Property, But Dangers To Its Own Contentment, For Example, Treason, Desertion Of A Soldier To The Enemy, Failure To Register For The Draft, Subversion And Subversive Conspiracy, Assassination Of Rulers And Such Economic Crimes Against The State As Counterfeiting Its Money Or Evasion Of Its Income Tax.
Soldier
Enemy
Contentment
It Is Particularly Odd That Economists Who Profess To Be Champions Of A Free-market Economy, Should Go To Such Twists And Turns To Avoid Facing The Plain Fact: That Gold, That Scarce And Valuable Market-produced Metal, Has Always Been, And Will Continue To Be, By Far The Best Money For Human Society.
Champion
Gold
Facts
Money Is The General Medium Of Exchange. It Is The Thing For Which All Other Goods Are Traded, The Means Of Final Payment For Such Goods On The Market.
Mean
Finals
Conspiracy
The State Has Typically Been A Device For Producing Affluence For A Few At The Expense Of Many.
Affluence
States
Expenses
The Individual Man, In Introspecting The Fact Of His Own Consciousness, Also Discovers The Primordial Natural Fact Of His Freedom: His Freedom To Choose, His Freedom To Use Or Not Use His Reason About Any Given Subject. In Short, The Natural Fact Of His "free Will." He Also Discovers The Natural Fact Of His Mind's Command Over His Body And Its Actions: That Is, Of His Natural Ownership Over His Self.
Freedom
Men
Self
You Don't Need A Treaty To Have Free Trade.
Liberty
Needs
Libertarian
The Great Non Sequitur Committed By Defenders Of The State, Is To Leap From The Necessity Of Society To The Necessity Of The State.
Liberty
Libertarian
States
Scratch An Egalitarian, And You Will Inevitably Find A Statist.
Scratches
Gorbachev's Stance Contrasts Admirably With The Policy Of The Sainted Abraham Lincoln, Who Used Massive Force And Mass Murder To Force The Seceding Southern States To Remain In The Union.
Wisdom
Southern
Advice
The Concept Of Life And Perfection Is Incompatible. But So Is Death And Perfection
Perfection
Concepts
Modern Economics Is A Set Of Formal Models And Equations Purporting To Fully Determine Human Behaviour, At Least In The Economic Realm. And There Is No Way That Uncertainty Can Be Compressed Into Determinate Mathematical Models.
Way
Behaviour
Modern
Never Have The World's Moneys Been So Long Cut Off From Their Metallic Roots.
Cutting
Roots
Long
What...can The Government Do To Help The Poor? The Only Answer Is The Libertarian Answer: Get Out Of The Way.
Government
Answers
Libertarian
So: If The Chronic Inflation Undergone By Americans, And In Almost Every Other Country, Is Caused By The Continuing Creation Of New Money, And If In Each Country Its Governmental "central Bank" (in The United States, The Federal Reserve) Is The Sole Monopoly Source And Creator Of All Money, Who Then Is Responsible For The Blight Of Inflation? Who Except The Very Institution That Is Solely Empowered To Create Money, That Is, The Fed (and The Bank Of England, And The Bank Of Italy, And Other Central Banks) Itself?
Country
England
United States
The Freedom To Speak Is Meaningless Without The Corollary Freedom To Keep Silent.
Libertarian
Speak
Silent
On The Free Market, Everyone Earns According To His Productive Value In Satisfying Consumer Desires. Under Statist Distribution, Everyone Earns In Proportion To The Amount He Can Plunder From The Producers.
Desire
Anarchy
Plunder
It Would Be An Instructive Exercise For The Skeptical Reader To Try To Frame A Definition Of Taxation Which Does Not Also Include Theft. Like The Robber, The State Demands Money At The Equivalent Of Gunpoint; If The Taxpayer Refuses To Pay, His Assets Are Seized By Force, And If He Should Resist Such Depredation, He Will Be Arrested Or Shot If He Should Continue To Resist.
Exercise
Trying
Doe
One Of The Most Important Features Of Our Economic Resources Is Their Scarcity: Land, Labor, And Capital Goods Factors Are All Scarce, And May All Be Put To Various Possible Uses. The Free Market Uses Them 'productively' Because The Producers Are Guided, On The Market, To Produce What The Consumers Most Need: Automobiles, For Example, Rather Than Buggies.
Land
Important
Example
All Government Wars Are Unjust.
Peace
War
Government
In Short, The Early Receivers Of The New Money In This Market Chain Of Events Gain At The Expense Of Those Who Receive The Money Toward The End Of The Chain, And Still Worse Losers Are The People (e.g., Those On Fixed Incomes Such As Annuities, Interest, Or Pensions) Who Never Receive The New Money.
People
Liberty
Events
The Drum-fire Of Propaganda That The Fed Is Manning The Ramparts Against The Menace Of Inflation Brought About By Others Is Nothing Less Than A Deceptive Shell Game. The Culprit Solely Responsible For Inflation, The Federal Reserve, Is Continually Engaged In Raising A Hue-and-cry About 'inflation,' For Which Virtually Everyone Else In Society Seems To Be Responsible. What We Are Seeing Is The Old Ploy By The Robber Who Starts Shouting 'stop, Thief!' And Runs Down The Street Pointing Ahead At Others.
Running
Fire
Games
Who Wants Good People In Government? Good People Should Be In The Private Sector. Helping Us Out, Helping Themselves Out In The Private Sector. We Want Schmoes In Government. We Want People Who Can't Find The Doorknob. Why Waste Productive People, As Well As Looting The Taxpayer?
Government
People
Want
Remember That The Minimum Wage Law Provides No Jobs; It Only Outlaws Them; And Outlawed Jobs Are The Inevitable Result.
Jobs
Law
Minimum Wage
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.
Technology
Rights
Government
Rights Might Be Universal But Their Enforcement Must Be Local.
Philosophy
Rights
Political
All Of The Services Commonly Thought To Require The State-from The Coining Of Money To Police Protection To The Development Of Law In Defense Of The Rights Of Person And Property-can Be And Have Been Supplied Far More Efficiently And Certainly More Morally By Private Persons. The State Is In No Sense Required By The Nature Of Man; Quite The Contrary.
Freedom
Men
Rights
Monetary Inflation Not Only Raises Prices And Destroys The Value Of The Currency Unit; It Also Acts As A Giant System Of Expropriation.
Giants
Currency
Raises
[professional Politicians] Don't Mind If Price Controls Cause Shortages Of Health Care. In Fact, They Welcome The Prospect, Because Then They Can Impose Rationing; They Can Impose Priorities, And Tell Everyone How Much Of What Kind Of Medical Care They Can Have. And Besides, ... There's That Deeply Satisfying Rush Of Power.
Priorities
Political
Mind
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.
Government
Leader
Subsidies
Behind The Honeyed But Patently Absurd Pleas For Equality Is A Ruthless Drive For Placing Themselves (the Elites) At The Top Of A New Hierarchy Of Power.
Hierarchy
Absurd
Ruthless
Money ... Is The Nerve Center Of The Economic System. If, Therefore, The State Is Able To Gain Unquestioned Control Over The Unit Of All Accounts, The State Will Then Be In A Position To Dominate The Entire Economic System, And The Whole Society.
Nerves
Able
Gains
Government Is A Gang Of Thieves Writ Large.
Government
Thieves
Gang
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.
Past
Government
Peaceful
The State Provides A Legal, Orderly, Systematic Channel For Predation On The Property Of The Producers.
Systematic
States
Producers
Unlike The Days Of The Gold Standard, It Is Impossible For The Federal Reserve To Go Bankrupt; It Holds The Legal Monopoly Of Counterfeiting (of Creating Money Out Of Thin Air) In The Entire Country.
Country
Money
Air
I See No Other Conceivable Strategy For The Achievement Of Liberty Than Political Action. Religious Or Philosophical Conversion Of Each Man And Woman Is Simply Not Going To Work; That Strategy Ignores The Problem Of Power, The Fact That Millions Of People Have A Vested Interest In Statism And Are Not Likely To Give It Up.... Education In Liberty Is Of Course Vital, But It Is Not Enough; Action Must Also Be Taken To Roll Back The State.
Religious
Philosophical
Taken
Since 1933, New Deal Farm Policy Has Continued And Expanded, Pursuing Its Grisly Logic At The Expense Of The Nation's Consumers, Year In And Year Out, In Democrat Or Republican Regimes, In Good Times And In Bad.
Years
Good Times
Logic
It Is Clearly Absurd To Limit The Term 'education' To A Person's Formal Schooling.
Limits
Absurd
Formal
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?
New York
Block
Government
Essentially, I Mean The Almost Self-evident Fact That Individuals, Ethnic Groups, And Races Differ Among Themselves In Intelligence And In Many Other Traits, And That Intelligence, As Well As Less Controversial Traits Of Temperament, Are In Large Part Hereditary.
Mean
Race
Self
This Process, This Method Necessary To Man's Survival And Prosperity Upon The Earth, Has Often Been Derided As Unduly Or Exclusively "materialistic." But It Should Be Clear That What Has Happened In This Activity Proper To Man's Nature Is A Fusion Of "spirit" And Matter; Man's Mind, Using The Ideas It Has Learned, Directs His Energy In Transforming And Reshaping Matter Into Ways To Sustain And Advance His Wants And His Life. Behind Every "produced" Good, Behind Every Man-made Transformation Of Natural Resources, Is An Idea Directing The Effort, A Manifestation Of Man's Spirit.
Freedom
Men
Ideas
The State Is, And Always Has Been, The Great Single Enemy Of The Human Race, Its Liberty, Happiness, And Progress.
Race
Enemy
Liberty
The More These Readjustments Are Delayed ... The Longer The Depression Will Have To Last, And The Longer Complete Recovery Is Postponed.
Recovery
Liberty
Lasts
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.
Suicide
Government
People
The Man Who Puts All The Guns And All The Decision-making Power Into The Hands Of The Central Government And Then Says, ‘limit Yourself’; It Is He Who Is Truly The Impractical Utopian.
Men
Gun
Hands
The More Consistently Austrian School An Economist Is, The Better A Writer He Will Be.
School
Economist
Consistently
Capitalism Is The Fullest Expression Of Anarchism And Anarchism Is The Fullest Expression Of Capitalism.
Expression
Anarchism
Capitalism
Governments Have Persistently Tried Their Best To Promote, Encourage, And Expand The Circulation Of Bank And Government Paper, And To Discourage The People's Use Of Gold Itself.
Encouragement
Money
Government
I Define Anarchist Society As One Where There Is No Legal Possibility For Coercive Aggression Against The Person Or Property Of Any Individual.
Anarchist
Individual
Possibility
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.
Jobs
Government
Media
Liberty And Morality Had To Win Their Way Slowly Over Many Centuries, Until Finally Expanding Liberty Made Possible The Great Technological Advance Of The Industrial Revolution And The Flowering Of Modern Capitalism.
Winning
Liberty
Way
I Want To Make It Clear What I Am Not Saying. I Am Not Saying That Fiat Money, Once Established On The Ruins Of Gold, Cannot Then Continue Indefinitely On Its Own.
Money
Gold
Want
Equality Is Not In The Natural Order Of Things, And The Crusade To Make Everyone Equal In Every Respect (except Before The Law) Is Certain To Have Disastrous Consequences.
Order
Law
Natural
To Those Advocates Of Independent Paper Moneys Who Also Champion The Free Market, I Would Address This Simple Question: "why Don't You Advocate The Unlimited Freedom Of Each Individual To Manufacture Dollars?" If Dollars Are Really And Properly Things-in-themselves, Why Not Let Everyone Manufacture Them As They Manufacture Wheat And Baby Food?
Baby
Money
Freedom
Capitalism Is The Fullest Expression Of Anarchism, And Anarchism Is The Fullest Expression Of Capitalism. Not Only Are They Compatible, But You Can't Really Have One Without The Other. True Anarchism Will Be Capitalism, And True Capitalism Will Be Anarchism
Expression
Anarchism
Capitalism
An Atlas, Whose Back Is Bowed And Whose Hands Are Busy Holding Up The World, Has No Arms To Lift To Deal With His Own Defense. Increase His Burdens And You Will Crush Him...this Is Our Present Posture...this Suggestions I Make...would...conserve American Lives For American Ends.
Crush
War
Hands
The Fundamental Axiom, Then, For The Study Of Man Is The Existence Of Individual Consciousness
Men
Liberty
Study
The Best Way To Help The Poor Is To Slash Taxes And Allow Savings, Investment, And Creation Of Jobs To Proceed Unhampered.
Jobs
Saving
Way
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.
Organization
Use
Coercion
If You Wish To Know How Libertarians Regard The State And Any Of Its Acts, Simply Think Of The State As A Criminal Band, And All Of The Libertarian Attitudes Will Logically Fall Into Place.
Attitude
Fall
Thinking
There Can Be No Truly Moral Choice Unless That Choice Is Made In Freedom; Similarly, There Can Be No Really Firmly Grounded And Consistent Defense Of Freedom Unless That Defense Is Rooted In Moral Principle.
Choices
Liberty
Principles
Just As No One Is Morally Required To Answer A Robber Truthfully When He Asks If There Are Any Valuables In One’s House, So No One Can Be Morally Required To Answer Truthfully Similar Questions Asked By The State, E.g., When Filling Out Income Tax Returns.
House
Income
Answers
There Can Be No Truly Moral Choice Unless That Choice Is Made In Freedom; Similarly, There Can Be No Really Firmly Grounded And Consistent Defense Of Freedom Unless That Defense Is Rooted In Moral Principle. In Concentrating On The Ends Of Choice, The Conservative, By Neglecting The Conditions Of Choice, Loses That Very Morality Of Conduct With Which He Is So Concerned. And The Libertarian, By Concentrating Only On The Means, Or Conditions, Of Choice And Ignoring The Ends, Throws Away An Essential Moral Defense Of His Own Position.
Freedom
Mean
Responsibility
There Can Be No Such Thing As 'fairness In Taxation.' Taxation Is Nothing But Organized Theft, And The Concept Of A 'fair Tax' Is Therefore Every Bit As Absurd As That Of 'fair Theft.'
Liberty
Taxation
Fairness
Human Life Is Not Some Sort Of Race Or Game In Which Each Person Should Start From An Identical Mark. It Is An Attempt By Each Man To Be As Happy As Possible. And Each Person Could Not Begin From The Same Point, For The World Has Not Just Come Into Being; It Is Diverse And Infinitely Varied In Its Parts. The Mere Fact That One Individual Is Necessarily Born In A Different Place From Someone Else Immediately Insures That His Inherited Opportunity Cannot Be The Same As His Neighbor's.
Opportunity
Equality
Men
Having Examined The Nature Of Fractional Reserve And Of Central Banking, And Having Seen How The Questionable Blessings Of Central Banking Were Fastened Upon America, It Is Time To See Precisely How The Fed, As Presently Constituted, Carries Out Its Systemic Inflation And Its Control Of The American Monetary System.
Money
Blessing
America
In Fact, The Libertarian Would Reason That The Fact That Human Nature Is A Mixture Of Both Good And Evil Provides Its Own Particular Argument In His Favor. For If Man Is Such A Mixture, Then The Best Societal Framework Is Surely One In Which Evil Is Discouraged And The Good Encouraged. The Libertarian Maintains That The Existence Of The State Apparatus Provides A Ready, Swift Channel For The Exercise Of Evil, Since The Rulers Of The State Are Thereby Legitimated And Can Wield Compulsion In Ways That No One Else Is Permitted To Do.
Exercise
Men
Evil
States Have Always Needed Intellectuals To Con The Public Into Believing That Its Rule Is Wise, Good, And Inevitable
Wise
Believe
States
All Government Operation Is Wasteful, Inefficient, And Serves The Bureaucrat Rather Than The Consumer.
Government
Operations
Consumers
It Is Easy To Be Conspicuously 'compassionate' If Others Are Being Forced To Pay The Cost.
Liberty
Cost
Libertarian
Kissinger's Major, And Most Lucrative Role, Has Come As Head Of Kissinger Associates In New York City, Founded On A Loan Obtained In 1982 From The International Banking Firm Of E.m. Warburg, Pincus And Company. Nominally, Kissinger Associates (ka) Is An "international Consulting Firm" But "consultant" Covers Many Sins, And In Ka's Case, This Means International Political Influence-peddling For Its Two Dozen Or So Important Corporate Clients.
New York
Mean
Cities
...the Very Nature Of Interstate War Puts Innocent Civilians Into Great Jeopardy, Especially With Modern Technology.
Peace
War
Technology
Minimum Wage Laws Tragically Generate Unemployment, Especially So Among The Poorest And Least Skilled Or Educated Workers... Because A Minimum Wage, Of Course, Does Not Guarantee Any Worker's Employment; It Only Prohibits, By Force Of Law, Anyone From Being Hired At The Wage Which Would Pay His Employer To Hire Him.
Law
Doe
Unemployment
If We Look At The Black Record Of Mass Murder, Exploitation, And Tyranny Levied On Society By Governments Over The Ages, We Need Not Be Loath To Abandon The Leviathan State And . . . Try Freedom.
Government
Black
Trying
I See The Liberty Of The Individual Not Only As A Great Moral Good In Itself (or, With Lord Acton, As The Highest Political Good), But Also As The Necessary Condition For The Flowering Of All The Other Goods That Mankind Cherishes: Moral Virtue, Civilization, The Arts And Sciences, Economic Prosperity.
Art
Civilization
Political
We Libertarians Are Not The Spokesmen For Any Ethnic Or Economic Class; We Are The Spokesmen For All Classes, For All Of The Public; We Strive To See All Of These Groups United, Hand-in-hand, In Opposition To The Plundering And Privileged Minority That Constitutes The Rulers Of The State.
Hands
Class
Groups
True #‎ Anarchism Will Be #‎ Capitalism , And True Capitalism Will Be Anarchism.
Anarchism
Capitalism
Since The State Necessarily Lives By The Compulsory Confiscation Of Private Capital, And Since Its Expansion Necessarily Involves Ever-greater Incursions On Private Individuals And Private Enterprise, We Must Assert That The State Is Profoundly And Inherently Anti-capitalist .
Expansion
Individual
States
Libertarians Regard The State As The Supreme, The Eternal, The Best Organized Aggressor Against The Persons And Property Of The Mass Of The Public. All States Everywhere, Whether Democratic, Dictatorial, Or Monarchical, Whether Red, White, Blue Or Brown.
Blue
White
Libertarian
The Ingenious Slogan That The Public Debt Does Not Matter Because 'we Owe It To Ourselves' Is Clearly Absurd.
Doe
Debt
Matter
The Costs Of Government Are Bound To Be Much Higher Than Those Of The Free Market. . .the State Cannot Calculate Well And Therefore Cannot Gauge Its Costs Accurately.
Government
Gauges
Cost
Instead Of A Bumbling And Inefficient Tool Of Society, The Radical [libertarian] Sees The State Itself, In Its Very Nature, As Coercive, Exploitative, Parasitic, And Hence Profoundly Antisocial. The State Is, And Always Has Been, The Great Single Enemy Of The Human Race, Its Liberty, Happiness, And Progress.
Race
Enemy
Progress
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?
Unique
Men
Years
We Must Therefore Turn To History For Enlightenment; Here We Find That None Of The Proclaimed Anarchist Groups Correspond To The Libertarian Position, That Even The Best Of Them Have Unrealistic And Socialistic Elements In Their Doctrines. Furthermore, We Find That All Of The Current Anarchists Are Irrational Collectivists, And Therefore At Opposite Poles From Our Position. We Must Therefore Conclude That We Are Not Anarchists, And That Those Who Call Us Anarchists Are Not On Firm Etymological Ground, And Are Being Completely Unhistorical.
Opposites
Enlightenment
Groups
Every Man Must Have Freedom, Must Have The Scope To Form, Test, And Act Upon His Own Choices, For Any Sort Of Development Of His Own Personality To Take Place. He Must, In Short, Be Free In Order That He May Be Fully Human.
Men
Order
Choices
Falling Prices Through Increased Production Is A Wonderful Long-run Tendency Of Untrammeled Capitalism.
Running
Fall
Long
The State Is A Gang Of Thieves Writ Large - The Most Immoral, Grasping And Unscrupulous Individuals In Any Society.
Thieves
Gang
Individual
The Policy Of Letting The Child 'do What He Likes' Is An Insidious One, Since The Children Are Encouraged To Continue Always At Their Original Superficial Level, Without Receiving Guidance In Study. Furthermore, The 'three Rs,' The Fundamental Tools, Are Neglected As Long As Possible, With The Result That The Child's Chance To Develop His Mind Is Greatly Retarded. The Policy Of Teaching Words Via Pictures Instead Of By The Alphabet Tends To Deprive The Young Child Of The Greatest Reasoning Tool Of All.
Children
Educational
Teaching
Monetary Expansion Is A Massive Scheme Of Hidden Redistribution.
Expansion
Schemes
Massive
After The Volcker Fund Collapsed, I Got Another Grant From The Lilly Endowment To Do A History Of The U.s., Which I Worked On From 1962-66. The Original Idea Was To Take The Regular Facts And Put A Libertarian Assessment On Everything.
Assessment
Ideas
Libertarian
It Is Not The Business Of The Law To Make Anyone Good Or Reverent Or Moral Or Clean Or Upright.
Law
Justice
Liberty
Subjectivism Is Not An Absolute Principle; It Is A Necessary But Not Sufficient Condition For Sound Methodology.
Sound
Principles
Methodology
I See A Great Future For Gold And Silver Coins As The Currency People May Increasingly Turn To When Paper Currencies Begin To Disintegrate.
People
Gold
Coins
Cops Must Be Unleashed, And Allowed To Administer Instant Punishment, Subject Of Course To Liability When They Are In Error.
Errors
Punishment
Cop
All Interstate Wars Intensify Aggression – Maximize It … Some Wars Are Even More Unjust Than Others. In Other Words, All Government Wars Are Unjust, Although Some Governments Have Less Unjust Claims.
War
Government
Unjust
At The Base Of The Fed Pyramid, And Therefore Of The Bank System's Creation Of "money" In The Sense Of Deposits, Is The Fed's Power To Print Legal Tender Money. But The Fed Tries Its Best Not To Print Cash But Rather To "print" Or Create Demand Deposits, Checking Deposits, Out Of Thin Air, Since Its Demand Deposits Constitute The Reserves On Top Of Which The Commercial Banks Can Pyramid A Multiple Creation Of Bank Deposits, Or "checkbook Money."
Money
Air
Commercial Banks
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.
Rights
Focus
Defense
Placing The State In Charge Of Moral Principles Is Equivalent To Putting The Proverbial Fox In Charge Of The Chicken Coop.
Principles
Foxes
Moral
Restoring Prayer ... Will Scarcely At This Date Solve The Grievous Public School Problem. Public Schools Are Expensive And Massive Centers For Cultural And Ideological Brainwashing, At Which They Are Unfortunately Far More Effective Than In Teaching The 3 R's Or In Keeping Simple Order Within The Schools. Any Plan To Begin Dismantling The Public School Monstrosity Is Met With Effective Opposition By The Teachers' And Educators' Unions. Truly Radical Change Is Needed To Shift Education From Public To Unregulated Private Schooling, Religious And Secular, As Well As Home Schooling By Parents.
Education
Teacher
Religious
[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.
Believe
Rights
Government
Soaking The Rich Would Not Only Be Profoundly Immoral, It Would Drastically Penalize The Very Virtues: Thrift, Business Foresight, And Investment, That Have Brought About Our Remarkable Standard Of Living. It Would Truly Be Killing The Goose That Lays The Golden Eggs.
Eggs
Golden
Rich
Harold, The Young Kids Out There Are Not Going To Be Willing To Go To The Barricades In Defense Of Lowered Transaction Costs.
Kids
Defense
Cost
The Essence And The Glory Of The Free Market Is That Individual Firms And Businesses, Competing On The Market, Provide An Ever-changing Orchestration Of Efficient And Progressive Goods And Services: Continually Improving Products And Markets, Advancing Technology, Cutting Costs, And Meeting Changing Consumer Demands As Swiftly And As Efficiently As Possible.
Cutting
Technology
Essence
Unlike Every Other Person And Institution In Society, Government Obtains Its Revenue From Coercion, From Taxation.
Government
Taxation
Coercion
The Libertarian Must Never Advocate Or Prefer A Gradual, As Opposed To An Immediate And Rapid, Approach To His Goal. For By Doing So, He Undercuts The Overriding Importance Of His Own Goals And Principles. And If He Himself Values His Own Goals So Lightly, How Highly Will Others Value Them.
Goal
Principles
Libertarian
John Stuart Was The Quintessence Of Soft Rather Than Hardcore, A Woolly Minded Man Of Mush In Striking Contrast To His Steel-edged Father.
Father
Men
Steel
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.
Running
Government
Uniting
The State Thrives On War - Unless, Of Course, It Is Defeated And Crushed - Expands On It, Glories In It.
Peace
War
Glory
No One May Threaten Or Commit Violence ('aggress') Against Another Man's Person Or Property. Violence May Be Employed Only Against The Man Who Commits Such Violence; That Is, Only Defensively Against The Aggressive Violence Of Another. In Short, No Violence May Be Employed Against A Non-aggressor. Here Is The Fundamental Rule From Which Can Be Deduced The Entire Corpus Of Libertarian Theory.
Men
Libertarian
Violence
Children Are Prepared For Democracy By Being Led To Discuss Current Events Without First Learning The Systematic Subjects (politics, Economics, History) Which Are Necessary In Order To Discuss Them. The Mole Effect Is To Substitute Slogans And Superficial Opinion For Considered Individual Thought. And The Opinion Is That Of The Lowest Common Denominator Of The Group.
Children
Educational
Order
Only The State Legally Obtains Its Revenue By Coercion.
Coercion
States
Revenue
The Public Sector Can Only Feed Off The Private Sector; It Necessarily Lives Parasitically Upon The Private Economy. But This Means That The Productive Resources Of Society - Far From Satisfying The Wants Of Consumers - Are Now Directed, By Compulsion, Away From These Wants And Needs. The Consumers Are Deliberately Thwarted, And The Resources Of The Economy Diverted From Them To Those Activities Desire By The Parasitic Bureaucracy And Politicians.
Mean
Desire
Needs
The Natural Tendency Of The State Is Inflation.
Natural
States
Tendencies
If A Man Has The Right To Self-ownership, To The Control Of His Life, Then In The Real World He Must Also Have The Right To Sustain His Life By Grappling With And Transforming Resources; He Must Be Able To Own The Ground And The Resources On Which He Stands And Which He Must Use. In Short, To Sustain His Human Right.
Real
Men
Self
The Natural Tendency Of Government, Once In Charge Of Money, Is To Inflate And To Destroy The Value Of The Currency.
Government
Natural
Currency
The Necessary Consequence Of An Egalitarian Program Is The Decidedly Inegalitarian Creation Of A Ruthless Power Elite.
Creation
Program
Ruthless
Positivism Eliminates Any Kind Of Natural Law Principle - For Example, That There Are Economic Laws Which Can Be Transgressed Only At Your Peril. With Positivism, There Is A Tendency To Leap Into Ad Hoc Economic Theory.
Law
Principles
Example
There Is One Good Thing About Marx: He Was Not A Keynesian.
Philosophy
Political
Liberty
Since Leaving Office In 1977, Dr. Kissinger Has Continued To Play A Highly Influential Role In U.s. Politics, In The U.s. Media, And In The Rockefeller World Empire. It Was Kissinger, Along With David Rockefeller, Who Was Decisive In The Disastrous Decision Of President Carter To Admit The Recently Toppled Shah Of Iran, Old Friend And Ally Of The Rockefellers Into The United States, A Decision That Led Directly To The Iranian Hostage Crisis And To Carter's Downfall.
Play
Hostage Crisis
Media
The General Theory Was Not Truly Revolutionary At All But Merely Old And Oft-refuted Mercantilist And Inflationist Fallacies Dressed Up In Shiny New Garb, Replete With Newly Constructed And Largely Incomprehensible Jargon.
Jargon
Revolutionary
Theory
Throughout History Governments Have Been Chronically Short Of Revenue. The Reason Should Be Clear: Unlike You And Me, Governments Do Not Produce Useful Goods And Services That They Can Sell On The Market; Governments, Rather Than Producing And Selling Services, Live Parasitically Off The Market And Off Society.
Government
Like You
Reason
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.
Exercise
Organization
Government
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.
Ignorance
Discipline
People
The Natural Tendency Of The State Is Inflation. This Statement Will Shock Those Accustomed To Viewing The State As A Committee Of The Whole Nation Ardently Dispensing The General Welfare, But I Think It Nonetheless True.
Thinking
Welfare
Natural
Money Is Different From All Other Commodities: Other Things Being Equal, More Shoes, Or More Discoveries Of Oil Or Copper Benefit Society, Since They Help Alleviate Natural Scarcity. But Once A Commodity Is Established As A Money On The Market, No More Money At All Is Needed. Since The Only Use Of Money Is For Exchange And Reckoning, More Dollars Or Pounds Or Marks In Circulation Cannot Confer A Social Benefit: They Will Simply Dilute The Exchange Value Of Every Existing Dollar Or Pound Or Mark.
Money
Oil
Discovery
The Modern Welfare State, Highly Touted As Soaking The Rich To Subsidize The Poor, Does No Such Thing. In Fact, Soaking The Rich Would Have Disastrous Effects, Not Just For The Rich But For The Poor And Middle Classes Themselves. For It Is The Rich Who Provide A Proportionately Greater Amount Of Saving, Investment Capital, Entrepreneurial Foresight, And Financing Of Technological Innovation That Has Brought The Unites States To By Far The Highest Standard Of Living - For The Mass Of The People - Of Any Country In History.
Country
Class
People
Governmental Subsidy Systems Promote Inefficiency In Production And Efficiency In Coercion And Subservience, While Penalizing Efficiency In Production And Inefficiency In Predation.
Government
Subsidies
Coercion
Gold Was Not Selected Arbitrarily By Governments To Be The Monetary Standard. Gold Had Developed For Many Centuries On The Free Market As The Best Money; As The Commodity Providing The Most Stable And Desirable Monetary Medium.
Government
Gold
Commodity
Rule By The Statist Elite Is Not Benign Or Simply A Matter Of Who Happens To Be In Office: It Is Rule By A Growing Army Of Leeches And Parasites Battening Off The Income And Wealth Of Hard-working Americans, Destroying Their Property, Corrupting Their Customs And Institutions, Sneering At Their Religion.
Hard Work
Army
Office
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.
Government
Gold
Tickets
The More The Government Intervenes To Delay The Market's Adjustment, The Longer And More Grueling The Depression Will Be, And The More Difficult Will Be The Road To Complete Recovery.
Recovery
Government
Delay
Inflation, Being A Fraudulent Invasion Of Property, Could Not Take Place On The Free Market.
Invasion
Free Market
Inflation
This, By The Way, Is The Welfare State In Action: Its A Whole Bunch Of Special Interest Groups Screwing Consumers And Taxpayers, And Making Them Think They're Really Benefiting.
Philosophy
Thinking
Political
It Is In War That The State Really Comes Into Its Own: Swelling In Power, In Number, In Pride, In Absolute Dominion Over The Economy And The Society.
Peace
War
Pride
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