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The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. Friedrich Hayek
The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists. Willi Schlamm
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. Murray N. Rothbard
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. Ronald Reagan
Collectivism doesn’t work because it’s based on a faulty economic premise. There is no such thing as a person’s “fair share” of wealth. The gross national product is not a pizza that must be carefully divided because if I get too many slices, you have to eat the box. The economy is expandable and, in any practical sense, limitless. – P. J. O’Rourke
When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will. Fredric Bastiat
Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire. Ludwig von Mises
The high rate of unemployment among teenagers, and especially black teenagers, is both a scandal and a serious source of social unrest. Yet it is largely a result of minimum wage laws. We regard the minimum wage law as one of the most, if not the most, anti-black laws on the statute books. Milton Friedman
There are many farm handouts; but let’s call them what they really are: a form of legalized theft. Essentially, a congressman tells his farm constituency, “Vote for me. I’ll use my office to take another American’s money and give it to you.” Walter Williams
To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors. John Stuart Mill
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. Milton Friedman
Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy. Ludwig von Mises
Most economic fallacies derive … from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another. Milton Friedman
Ever since its founding in 1913, the Fed has described itself as an “independent” agency operated by selfless public servants striving to “fine-tune” the economy through monetary policy. In reality, however, a non-political governmental institution is as likely as a barking cat. Thomas J. DiLorenzo
The pattern is as old as human life. The new rulers use more and more force, more police, more soldiers, trying to enforce more efficient control, trying to make the planned economy work by piling regulations on regulations, decree on decree. The people are hungry and hungrier. And how does a man on this earth get butter? Doesn’t the government give butter? But government does not produce food from the earth; Government is guns. It is one common distinction of all civilized peoples, that they give their guns to the Government. Men in Government monopolize the necessary use of force; they are not using their energies productively; they are not milking cows. To get butter, they must use guns; they have nothing else to use. Rose Wilder Lane
The “private sector” of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; and…the “public sector” is, in fact, the coercive sector. Henry Hazlitt
The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-unon-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline. Milton Friedman
Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. By enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction, it reduces the area over which political power is exercised. Milton Friedman
The fact throughout history is that whenever government dominates the economic affairs of its citizenry, a free society is eroded, then destroyed, and a minority government ensues. Personal liberty without economic liberty is an absolute contradiction; the one cannot exist without the other. William E. Simon
Central planning will eventually destroy individual liberty by concentrating all political power in one person or in a committee; furthermore, it will eventually end our prosperity by laying the dead hand of state control on the economy. Robert M. Thornton
The essential quality of a free economy is that it cannot be planned. It leaves the solution of problems to the inspiration of the individuals in the untrammeled population. When something approaching a free economy has existed, it has always worked better than the schemes of any planners. Thomas H. Barber
Economic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics. Ludwig von Mises
When democratic governments create economic calamity, free markets get the blame. Jack Kemp
The Ten “Cannots” of Political Economy:
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot help the wage-earner by tearing down the wage-payer.
You cannot further the brotherhood of mankind by encouraging class hatred.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative.
You cannot help man permanently by doing for them what they could do and should do for themselves. Unknown
Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action. Ayn Rand
Politicians say they’re beefing up our economy. Most don’t know beef from pork. Harold Lowman
Private enterprise creates; government destroys. That is the great economic lesson of our times and all times. Lew Rockwell
Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster. Thomas Sowell
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics. Thomas Sowell
Hollywood actors tend to be Socialists because their entire industry is make-belief. When your world is make-belief then money takes on mystical qualities and does not need to adhere to the laws of mathematics. Heinz Schmitz
Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder. John F. Kennedy
Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear. Ayn Rand
Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others. Ayn Rand
Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. Thomas Sowell
Economics is a study of cause-and-effect relationships in an economy. It's purpose is to discern the consequences of various ways of allocating resources which have alternative uses. It has nothing to say about philosophy or values, anymore than it has to say about music or literature. Thomas Sowell
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. Adam Smith
It is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption. Jean-Baptiste Say
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. Carl Menger
If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialist. Friedrich Hayek
Situations emerge in the process of creative destruction in which many firms may have to perish that nevertheless would be able to live on vigorously and usefully if they could weather a particular storm. Joseph Schumpeter
Economics never was a dismal science. I should be a realistic science. Paul Samuelson
What good does it do a black youth to know that an employer must pay him $2 an hour if the fact that he must be paid that amount is what keeps him from getting a job? Paul Samuelson
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. But the economic education needed to reduce such ignorance must be based on austere, objective, scientific content—with no ideological or moral content of its own. Israel Kirzner
Market competition is the only form of organization which can afford a large measure of freedom to the individual. Frank Knight
There is nothing the state can do, and which society needs done, that cannot be done far better by the market. Lew Rockwell
The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects - his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity. Henry Hazlitt
Protectionism is a misnomer. The only people protected by tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions are those engaged in uneconomic and wasteful activity. Free trade is the only philosophy compatible with international peace and prosperity. Walter Block
Karl Marx was the foremost hater and most incessant whiner in the history of Western Civilization. He was a spoiled, overeducated brat who never grew up; he just grew more shrill as he grew older. His lifelong hatred and whining have led to the deaths (so far) of perhaps a hundred million people, depending on how many people perished under Mao's tyranny. We will probably never know. Gary North
Socialism is simply Communism for people without the testosterone to man the barricades. Gary North
While there have been all too many lies told in politics, most have some little, tiny fraction of truth in them, to make them seem plausible. But the “trickle-down” lie is 100 percent lie.
The “trickle-down” theory cannot be found in even the most voluminous scholarly studies of economic theories — including J. A. Schumpeter’s monumental History of Economic Analysis, more than a thousand pages long and printed in very small type. Thomas Sowell
In market terms, one is entitled to what others will offer in willing exchange. That is all! Leonard Read
Such terms as communism, socialism, Fabianism, the welfare state, Nazism, fascism, state interventionism, egalitarianism, the planned economy, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier are simply different labels for much the same thing. Leonard Read
Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else. Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Nothing increases the number of jobs so rapidly as labor-saving machinery, because it releases wants theretofore unknown, by permitting leisure. Isabel Paterson
The primary reason for a tariff is that it enables the exploitation of the domestic consumer by a process indistinguishable from sheer robbery. Albert J. Nock
Capital formation is the greatest charity of all. F. A. Harper
When entrepreneurs are free to compete, they grow the pie so that everyone's share gets larger. John Stossel
"As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer." Sheldon Richman
I call crony capitalism, where you take money from successful small businesses, spend it in Washington on favored industries, on favored individuals, picking winners and losers in the economy, that's not pro-growth economics. That's not entrepreneurial economics. That's not helping small businesses. That's cronyism, that's corporate welfare. Paul Ryan
See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom and 500 Books on 2 DVDROMs for Libertarians and Objectivists
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