Authors > Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard Quotes
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.
Source: Anatomy of the State (1974) [link] #4
Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defence is itself aggressive, unjust and criminal.
Source: Myth and Truth About Libertarianism (1979) [link] #17
The great German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer pointed out that there are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth; one, the ... way of production and exchange, he called the "economic means." The other way is simpler in that it does not require productivity; it is the way of seizure of another's goods or services by the use of force and violence. This is the method of one-sided confiscation, of theft of the property of others. This is the method which Oppenheimer termed "the political means" to wealth.
Source: Anatomy of the State (1974) [link] #19
There is one crucially important power inherent in the nature of the State apparatus. All other persons and groups in society (except for acknowledged and sporadic criminals such as thieves and bank robbers) obtain their income voluntarily: either by selling goods and services to the consuming public, or by voluntary gift (e.g., membership in a club or association, bequest, or inheritance). Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion, by threatening dire penalties should the income not be forthcoming. That coercion is known as "taxation," although in less regularized epochs it was often known as "tribute." Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State's inhabitants, or subjects.
Source: The Ethics of Liberty (1982) [link] #23
For the libertarian, the main task of the present epoch is to cast off his needless and debilitating pessimism, to set his sights on long-run victory and to set about the road to its attainment ... Let him proceed in the spirit of radical long-run optimism.
Source: Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty (1965) [link] #27
The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism.
Source: Anatomy of the State (1974) [link] #36
In this century, the human race faces, once again, the virulent reign of the State--of the State now armed with the fruits of man's creative powers, confiscated and perverted to its own aims. The last few centuries were times when men tried to place constitutional and other limits on the State, only to find that such limits, as with all other attempts, have failed. Of all the numerous forms that governments have taken over the centuries, of all the concepts and institutions that have been tried, none has succeeded in keeping the State in check. The problem of the State is evidently as far from solution as ever. Perhaps new paths of inquiry must be explored, if the successful, final solution of the State question is ever to be attained.
Source: Anatomy of the State (1974) [link] #38
The point is that the advocate of a free market in anything cannot provide a "constructive" blueprint of such a market in advance. The essence and the glory of the free market is that individual firms and businesses, competing on the market, provide and ever-changing orchestration of efficient and progressive goods and services.
Source: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973) [link] #46
The basic axiom of libertarian political theory holds that every man is a selfowner, having absolute jurisdiction over his own body. In effect, this means that no one else may justly invade, or aggress against, another's person. It follows then that each person justly owns whatever previously unowned resources he appropriates or "mixes his labor with." From these twin axioms - self-ownership and "homesteading" - stem the justification for the entire system of property rights titles in a free-market society. This system establishes the right of every man to his own person, the right of donation, of bequest (and, concomitantly, the right to receive the bequest or inheritance), and the right of contractual exchange of property titles.
Source: Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution (1982) [link] #53
If states have everywhere been run by an oligarchic group of predators, how have they been able to maintain their rule over the mass of the population? The answer, as the philosopher David Hume pointed out over two centuries ago, is that in the long run every government, no matter how dictatorial, rests on the support of the majority of its subjects.
Source: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973) [link] #59
Political theory deals with what is proper or improper for government to do, and government is distinguished from every other group in society as being the institution of organized violence. Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free to do as he sees fit, except invade the person or property of another. What a person does with his or her life is vital and important, but is simply irrelevant to libertarianism.
Source: Myth and Truth About Libertarianism (1979) [link] #63
The State is, and always has been, the great single enemy of the human race, its liberty, happiness and progress.
Source: Unknown #72
Libertarians believe that murder is murder and does not become sanctified by reasons of state if committed by the government. We believe that theft is theft and does not become legitimated because organized robbers call their theft "taxation." We believe that enslavement is enslavement even if the institution committing that act calls it "conscription." In short, the key to libertarian theory is that it makes no exceptions in its universal ethic for government.
Source: Myth and Truth About Libertarianism (1979) [link] #76
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.
Source: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973) [link] #89
The basic reason why a person should be a Libertarian: not as an intellectual parlor game, not from the utilitarian weighing of costs and benefits, and not because there will be X percent more bathtubs produced in the free society. The basic reason for one’s libertarianism should be a passion for justice, for sweeping away as quickly as possible the tyranny, the thievery, the mass murder, and enslavement, which statism has, for too long, imposed upon mankind.
Source: Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays (1974) [link] #94
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.
Source: Free Market Police, Courts and Law (1973) [link] #102
What is the State anyway but organized banditry? What is taxation but theft on a gigantic, unchecked, scale? What is war but mass murder on a scale impossible by private police forces? What is conscription but mass enslavement? Can anyone envision a private police force getting away with a tiny fraction of what States get away with, and do habitually, year after year, century after century?
Source: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973) [link] #116
Are stable and consistent law codes possible, with only competing judges to develop and apply them, and without government or legislature? Not only are they possible, but over the years the best and most successful parts of our legal system were developed precisely in this manner. Legislatures, as well as kings, have been capricious, invasive, and inconsistent. They have only introduced anomalies and despotism into the legal system. In fact, the government is no more qualified to develop and apply law than it is to provide any other service; and just as religion has been separated from the State, and the economy can be separated from the State, so can every other State function, including police, courts, and the law itself!
Source: Free Market Police, Courts and Law (1973) [link] #120
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.
Source: War, Peace, and the State (1963) [link] #123
Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the state into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. The most that we can do, then, is to offer broad guidelines and perspectives on the shape of a projected anarchist society.
Source: Society without a State (1975) [link] #127
In short, private crime is, at best, sporadic and uncertain; the parasitism is ephemeral, and the coercive, parasitic lifeline can be cut at any time by the resistance of the victims. The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for predation on the property of the the producers; it makes certain, secure, and relatively "peaceful" the lifeline of the parasitic caste in society. The great libertarian writer Albert Jay Nock wrote vividly that "the State claims and exercises the monopoly of crime.... It forbids private murder, but itself organizes murder on a colossal scale. It punishes private theft, but itself lays unscrupulous hands on anything it wants, whether the property of citizen or of alien."
Source: Anatomy of the State (1974) [link] #138
Ideology has always been vital to the continued existence of the State, as attested by the systematic use of ideology since the ancient Oriental empires. The specific content of the ideology has, of course, changed over time, in accordance with changing conditions and cultures. In the Oriental despotisms, the Emperor was often held by the Church to be himself divine; in our more secular age, the argument runs more to "the public good" and the "general welfare." But the purpose is always the same: to convince the public that what the State does is not, as one might think, crime on a gigantic scale, but something necessary and vital that must be supported and obeyed.
Source: The Ethics of Liberty (1982) #143
Libertarians make no exceptions to the golden rule and provide no moral loophole, no double standard, for government.
Source: Myth and Truth About Libertarianism (1979) [link] #147
In a truly free society, a society where individual rights of person and property are maintained, the State, then, would necessarily cease to exist. Its myriad of invasive and aggressive activities, its vast depredations on the rights of person and property, would then disappear. At the same time, those genuine services which it does manage badly to perform would be thrown open to free competition, and to voluntarily chosen payments by individual consumers.
Source: The Ethics of Liberty (1982) [link] #154
There are two and only two ways that any economy can be organized. One is by freedom and voluntary choice--the way of the market. The other is by force and dictation--the way of the State.
Source: Man, Economy, and State (1962) [link] #164
Placing the state in charge of moral principles is equivalent to putting the proverbial fox in charge of the chicken coop.
Source: Myth and Truth About Libertarianism (1979) [link] #169
The essential activities of the State necessarily constitute criminal aggression and depredation of the just rights of private property of its subjects (including self-ownership).
Source: The Ethics of Liberty (1982) [link] #188
On the free market, it is a happy fact that the maximization of the wealth of one person or group redounds to the benefit of all; but in the political realm, the realm of the State, a maximization of income and wealth can only accrue parasitically to the State and its rulers at the expense of the rest of society.
Source: The Ethics of Liberty (1982) [link] #191
Social power is the power over nature, the living standards achieved by men in mutual exchange. State power, as we have seen, is the coercive and parasitic seizure of this production--a draining of the fruits of society for the benefit of nonproductive (actually antiproductive) rulers.
Source: Anatomy of the State (1974) [link] #214
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. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the coercive apparatus of the government -- the State -- to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence.
Source: Capitalism versus Statism (1972) [link] #224
It is no wonder that the contemporary libertarian, seeing the world going socialist and Communist, and believing himself virtually isolated and cut off from any prospect of united mass action, tends to be steeped in long-run pessimism. But the scene immediately brightens when we realize that that indispensable requisite of modern civilization: the overthrow of the Old Order, was accomplished by mass libertarian action erupting in such great revolutions of the West as the French and American Revolutions, and bringing about the glories of the Industrial Revolution and the advances of liberty, mobility, and rising living standards that we still retain today. Despite the reactionary swings backward to statism, the modern world stands towering above the world of the past. When we consider also that, in one form or another, the Old Order of despotism, feudalism, theocracy and militarism dominated every human civilization until the West of the 18th century, optimism over what man has and can achieve must mount still higher.
Source: Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty (1965) [link] #234
In Western Europe, as in many other civilizations, the typical model of the origin of the State was not via a voluntary "social contract" but by the conquest of one tribe by another. The original liberty of the tribe or the peasantry thus falls victim to the conquerors. At first, the conquering tribe killed and looted the victims and rode on. But at some time the conquerors decided that it would be more profitable to settle down among the conquered peasantry and rule and loot them on a permanent and systematic basis. The periodic tribute exacted from the conquered subjects eventually came to be called "taxation."
Source: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973) [link] #243
Libertarianism does not offer a way of life; it offers liberty, so that each person is free to adopt and act upon his own values and moral principles.
Source: Myth and Truth About Libertarianism (1979) [link] #267
The State is an inherently illegitimate institution of organized aggression, of organized and regularized crime against the persons and properties of its subjects. Rather than necessary to society, it is a profoundly antisocial institution which lives parasitically off of the productive activities of private citizens.
Source: The Ethics of Liberty (1982) [link] #283
I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself... 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.
Source: Conceived in Liberty (1979) [link] #317
States have always needed opinion-moulding intellectuals to con the public into believing that its rule is wise, good, and inevitable.
Source: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973) [link] #335
Once the public experiences tyranny for a long time, it becomes inured, and heedless of the possibility of an alternative society. But this means that should State despotism ever be removed, it would be extremely difficult to reimpose statism. The bulwark of habit would be gone, and statism would be seen by all for the tyranny that it is. If a free society were ever to be established, then, the chances for its maintaining itself would be excellent.
Source: The Political Thought of Étienne de la Boétie (1975) [link] #360
One of the crucial factors that permits governments to do the monstrous things they habitually do is the sense of legitimacy on the part of the stupefied public. The average citizen may not like--may even strongly object to--the policies and exactions of his government. But he has been imbued with the idea--carefully indoctrinated by centuries of governmental propaganda--that the government is his legitimate sovereign, and that it would be wicked or mad to refuse to obey its dictates. It is this sense of legitimacy that the State’s intellectuals have fostered over the ages, aided and abetted by all the trappings of legitimacy: flags, rituals, ceremonies, awards, constitutions, etc.
Source: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973) [link] #372
In the system of criminal punishment in the libertarian world, the emphasis would never be, as it is now, on "society's" jailing the criminal; the emphasis would necessarily be on compelling the criminal to make restitution to the victim of his crime. The present system, in which the victim is not recompensed but instead has to pay taxes to support the incarceration of his own attacker--would be evident nonsense in a world that focuses on the defense of property rights and therefore on the victim of crime.
Source: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973) [link] #392
The central thrust of libertarian thought, then, is to oppose any and all aggression against the property rights of individuals in their own persons and in the material objects they have voluntarily acquired. While individual and gangs of criminals are of course opposed, there is nothing unique here to the libertarian creed, since almost all persons and schools of thought oppose the exercise of random violence against persons and property... But the critical difference between libertarians and other people is not in the area of private crime; the critical difference is their view of the role of the State--the government. For libertarians regard the State as the supreme, the eternal, the best organized aggressor against the persons and property of the mass of the public.
Source: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973) [link] #408
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.
Source: Anatomy of the State (1974) [link] #429
There can be no such things 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."
Source: Libertarian Forum (1982) [link] #437
The vital command posts invariably owned monopolistically by the State are: (1) police and military protection; (2) judicial protection; (3) monopoly of the mint (and monopoly of defining money); (4) rivers and coastal seas; (5) urban streets and highways, and land generally (unused land, in addition to the power of eminent domain); and (6) the post office. The defense function is the one reserved most jealously by the State. It is vital to the State's existence, for on its monopoly of force depends its ability to exact taxes from the citizens. If citizens were permitted privately owned courts and armies, then they would possess the means to defend themselves against invasive acts by the government as well as by private individuals.
Source: Power and Market (1970) [link] #480
No action can be virtuous unless it is freely chosen.
Source: Frank S. Meyer: The Fusionist as Libertarian (1981) [link] #490
One of the glories of the market is that, even when greatly hobbled, competition and new wealth can break through.
Source: The Libertarian Forum (1974) [link] #498
On the free market, every man gains; one man's gain, in fact, is precisely the consequence of his bringing about the gain of others. When an exchange is coerced, on the other hand--when criminals or governments intervene--one group gains at the expense of others. 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. The market is an interpersonal relation of peace and harmony; statism is a relation of war and caste conflict. Not only do earnings on the free market correspond to productivity, but freedom also permits a continually enlarged market, with a wider division of labor, investment to satisfy future wants, and increased living standards.
Source: Power and Market (1970) [link] #506
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.
Source: Libertarians of Will, Intellect, and Action (1977) [link] #597
About Murray Rothbard
(From Mises Wiki)
Murray Newton Rothbard (March 2, 1926 — January 7, 1995) was an economist, scholar, intellectual and polymath who made major contributions in economics, political philosophy (libertarianism in particular), economic history and legal theory. He developed and extended the Austrian School of economics based on the earlier pioneering work of Ludwig von Mises. Rothbard eventually established himself as the principal Austrian theorist in the latter half of the twentieth century and applied Austrian analysis to historical topics such as the Great Depression of 1929 and the history of American banking.
Rothbard combined Austrian economics with a fervent commitment to individual liberty. He developed a unique synthesis that combined themes from nineteenth-century American individualist-anarchists such as Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker with Austrian economics. A new political philosophy was the result, and Rothbard devoted his remarkable intellectual energy, over a period of some forty-five years, to developing and promoting his style of libertarianism. In doing so, he became a major American public intellectual.
Building on the Austrian School's concept of spontaneous order, support for a free market in money production and condemnation of central planning, Rothbard advocated abolition of coercive government control of the economy. He considered the monopoly force of government the greatest danger to liberty and the long-term well-being of the populace, labeling the State as nothing but a "a bandit gang writ large"—the locus of the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society.
Rothbard concluded that all services provided by monopoly governments could be provided more efficiently by the private sector. He viewed many regulations and laws ostensibly promulgated for the "public interest" as self-interested power grabs by scheming government bureaucrats engaging in dangerously unfettered self-aggrandizement, as they were not subject to competitive pressures that would temper greed and self-interest with the need to produce goods and services that people actually wanted to pay for. Rothbard held that there were inefficiencies involved with government services and asserted that market disciplines would eliminate them, if the services could be provided by competition in the private sector.
Rothbard was equally condemning of state corporatism. He criticized many instances where business elites co-opted government's monopoly power so as to influence laws and regulatory policy in a manner benefiting them at the expense of their competitive rivals.
He argued that taxation represents coercive theft on a grand scale, and "a compulsory monopoly of force" prohibiting the more efficient voluntary procurement of defense and judicial services from competing suppliers. He also considered central banking and fractional reserve banking under a monopoly fiat money system a form of state-sponsored, legalized financial fraud, antithetical to libertarian principles and ethics. Rothbard opposed military, political, and economic interventionism in the affairs of other nations.
