Philosophy and Methodology

It is a hopeless task to interpret a symphony, a painting, or a novel.

There is a fundamental fact about the world that has profound implications for the supply of natural resources and for the relationship between production and economic activity on the one side and man's environment on the other: the entire earth consists of solidly packed chemical elements.

It is a hopeless task to interpret a symphony, a painting, or a novel. The interpreter at best tries to tell us something about his reaction to the work. He cannot tell us with certainty what the creator's meaning was or what other people may see in it.

Herbert Spencer is often misrepresented in textbooks and websites as a "social Darwinist," but these claims describe a mythical Spencer that never existed. The real Spencer was quite different. The real Spencer often expressed views quite similar to modern-day libertarians.

The collectivist doctrines look upon the individual merely as a refractory rebel.

The collectivist doctrines look upon the individual merely as a refractory rebel. This sinful wretch has the impudence to give preference to his petty selfish interests as against the sublime interests of the great god society.

The most obtrusive champion of the neopositivist program concerning the sciences of human action was Otto Neurath, who, in 1919, was one of the out

Just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another; there is no other source from which State power can be drawn.

Life in a stateless society will sometimes be bad, because not only are people not angels, but many of them are irredeemably vicious. But the outcome in a society under a state will be much worse.

If we were to award a prize for “brilliancy” in the history of economic thought, it would surely go to Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, the