Private Property

To believe that, absent government, folks would not help the poor is to turn one's back on history. In addition, to destroy capital in the name of ending poverty simply impoverishes us all.

We should be worried about building Battlestar Galactica.

Bob Higgs' 1997 article "Regime Uncertainty," now appears in slightly revised form as the first chapter of his 2006 book Depression, War, and Cold War.

The state punishes those who do good (those who provide services that customers are willing to pay for at a price they are willing to pay) and rewards those who do evil (those who use the coercive power of the state to prevent people from entering the marketplace and earning a living).

In fact, the government has already tried and failed to alleviate the Maryland crab crisis. Perhaps we should let capitalism have a crack at this problem.

From “Choice in Currency: A Path to Sound Money”; the Mises Circle in Vancouver. Recorded 13 September 2008.

"No benefit results from the mere expenditure of the money [on public works], nor the employment of the workmen employed on its construction; for, if this money had remained in the hands of the contributors, it would either directly or indirectly have put in activity an equal quantity of industry."

Surely every libertarian supports civil liberties, the corollary and complement of private property rights and the free-market economy.

They do it because they can. We fight for liberty because we must. No one else will do it for us.

But defending property rights - the only basis on which society can possibly exist in peace - is a worthy cause, and there are not nearly enough people doing it.