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" Nature is simply the environment on earth in which man finds himself, and to treat it as a separate being in the image of man is sheer nonsense. "

Murray Rothbard

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" The great fact of individual difference and variability (that is, inequality) is evident from the long record of human experience: hence, the general recognition of the antihuman nature of a world of coerced uniformity. "

Murray Rothbard

" Early economic theory was rooted in the Italian, French, and Spanish traditions, which were subjectivist oriented. Then it shifted onto the terrible path by Smith and Ricardo and the British classical tradition, which is 'objectivist' - values are in inherent in production. "

Murray Rothbard

" A robber who justified his theft by saying that he really helped his victims, by his spending giving a boost to retail trade, would find few converts; but when this theory is clothed in Keynesian equations and impressive references to the 'multiplier effect,' it unfortunately carries more conviction. "

Murray Rothbard

" All government wars are unjust. "

Murray Rothbard

" Gold and silver are always in demand, regardless of clime, century, or government in power. But public confidence in and, hence, demand for paper money depends on the ultimate confidence - or lack thereof - of the public in the viability of the issuing government. "

Murray Rothbard

" In his second Inaugural Address, on March 5, 1821, Monroe admitted at last to a general depression of prices, but only as a means of explaining the great decline in the federal revenue. Despite this, he asserted that the situation of America presented a 'gratifying spectacle.' "

Murray Rothbard

" While other individuals or institutions obtain their income by production of goods and services and by the peaceful and voluntary sale of these goods and services to others, the State obtains its revenue by the use of compulsion; that is, by the use and the threat of the jailhouse and the bayonet. "

Murray Rothbard

" On the market, all is harmony. But as soon as intervention appears and is established, conflict is created, for each may participate in a scramble to be a net gainer rather than a net loser - to be part of the invading team instead of one of the victims. "

Murray Rothbard

" The politician and the government expert receive their revenues, not from service voluntarily purchased on the market, but from a compulsory levy on the populace. These officials, therefore, wholly lack the pecuniary incentive to care about serving the public properly and competently. "

Murray Rothbard

" Originally, Congress provided in 1793 that all foreign coins circulating in the United States be legal tender. Indeed, foreign coins have been estimated to form 80 percent of American domestic specie circulation in 1800. "

Murray Rothbard

" The natural law is, in essence, a profoundly 'radical' ethic, for it holds the existing status quo, which might grossly violate natural law, up to the unsparing and unyielding light of reason. "

Murray Rothbard

" 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. "

Murray Rothbard

" The major reason for Keynes's rejection of communism was simply that he could scarcely identify with the grubby proletariat. "

Murray Rothbard

" Subjectivism is not an absolute principle; it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sound methodology. "

Murray Rothbard

" In order to institute action, it is not sufficient that the individual man have unachieved ends that he would like to fulfill. He must also expect that certain modes of behavior will enable him to attain his ends. A man may have a desire for sunshine, but if he realizes that he can do nothing to achieve it, he does not act on this desire. "

Murray Rothbard

" The fact that natural-law theorists derive from the very nature of man a fixed structure of law independent of time and place, or of habit or authority or group norms, makes that law a mighty force for radical change. "

Murray Rothbard

" In order to continue in office, any government (not simply a 'democratic' government) must have the support of the majority of its subjects. This support, it must be noted, need not be active enthusiasm; it may well be passive resignation as if to an inevitable law of nature. "

Murray Rothbard

" The 'boom-bust' cycle is generated by monetary intervention in the market, specifically bank credit expansion to business. "

Murray Rothbard

" I think one of the most important directions to be pursued in the 'sciences of human action' is to develop a natural-law ethics based on nature rather than, or at least to supplement, ethics based on theological revelation. "

Murray Rothbard

" The majority must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable, and certainly better than other conceivable alternatives. Promoting this ideology among the people is the vital social task of the 'intellectuals.' "

Murray Rothbard

" The Panic of 1819 exerted a profound effect on American economic thought. As the first great financial depression, similar to a modern expansion-depression pattern, the panic heightened interest in economic problems, and particularly those problems related to the causes and cures of depressed conditions. "

Murray Rothbard

" The expansionary operations of the Second Bank of the United States, coupled with its laxity toward insisting on specie payment by the state banks, impelled a further inflationary expansion of state banks on top of the spectacular enlargement of the central bank. Thus, the number of incorporated state banks rose from 232 in 1816 to 338 in 1818. "

Murray Rothbard

" Ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner. "

Murray Rothbard

" The picture of the free market is necessarily one of harmony and mutual benefit; the picture of State intervention is one of caste conflict, coercion, and exploitation. "

Murray Rothbard

" The Keynesian prescription for unemployment rests on the persistence of a 'money illusion' among workers, i.e., on the belief that while, through unions and government, they will keep money wage rates from falling, they will also accept a fall in real wage rates via higher prices. "

Murray Rothbard

" Man is born a tabula rasa; he must learn how to choose the ends that are proper for him and the means that he must adopt to attain them. All this must be done by his reason. "

Murray Rothbard

" Now judicial review, beloved by conservatives, can, of course, fulfill the excellent function of declaring government interventions and tyrannies unconstitutional. But it can also validate and legitimize the government in the eyes of the people by declaring these actions valid and constitutional. "

Murray Rothbard

" Only individuals can desire and act. The existence of an institution such as government becomes meaningful only through influencing the actions of those individuals who are and those who are not considered as members. "

Murray Rothbard

" The successful entrepreneurs on the free market will be the ones most adept at anticipating future business conditions. Yet, the forecasting can never be perfect, and entrepreneurs will continue to differ in the success of their judgments. If this were not so, no profits or losses would ever be made in business. "

Murray Rothbard

" 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. "

Murray Rothbard