DEFICITS

Huge deficits … cripple private investment by crowding out private savings and channeling them into unproductive and wasteful government boondoggles which will also impose higher taxes on future generations.

… While deficits are often inflationary and always pernicious, curing them by raising taxes is equivalent to curing an illness by shooting the patient. …

Deficits, then, should be eliminated, but only by cutting government spending.

America’s Great Depression, p. xviii

… since taxation is an evil act of aggression, any failure to welcome a tax cut with alacrity undercuts and contradicts the libertarian goal. The time to oppose government expenditures is when the budget is being considered or voted upon, when the libertarian should call for drastic slashes in expenditures as well. Government activity must be reduced whenever and wherever it can; any opposition to a particular tax—or expenditure cut—is impermissible for it contradicts libertarian principles and the libertarian goal.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 263

… since taxation is an illegitimate act of aggression, any failure to welcome a tax cut—any tax cut—with alacrity undercuts and contradicts the libertarian goal. The time to oppose government expenditures is when the budget is being considered or voted upon; then the libertarian should call for drastic slashes in expenditures as well. In short, government activity must be reduced whenever it can: any opposition to a particular cut in taxes or expenditures is impermissible, for it contradicts libertarian principles and the libertarian goal.

For a New Liberty, p. 384

… even deficits not at all monetized will have a baleful effect. For they will mean that precious and scarce private savings will be siphoned off into unproductive government boondoggles. Growth rates, already alarmingly low, will sink further because government spending will “crowd out” private investment from the capital markets. Interest rates will therefore be driven upward. But the major problem is not the rise in interest, but the crippling effect on private investment, productivity, and economic growth. Deficits Do Matter!

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 1000

Deficits, therefore, should be eliminated by drastic slashes of government spending. But where and how? The answer: anywhere and everywhere. There is no mystery about it. Just slash with a hefty meat axe. Go down, for example, the Eisenhower budget and reduce every item back to it. Or better yet, the Roosevelt budget of the 1930s. Still better, the Grover Cleveland budget. Still better yet, return to the average annual budget of the Federalist period of the 1790s: $5.8 million dollars. …

Of course, my most preferred position is that the United States budget go back, or rather go forward, to a nice round Zero. But, to demonstrate my devotion to moderation, I could live with a transitional level of $5.8 million for a year or two.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 1003

… federal deficits will divert savings to unproductive government spending and thereby crowd out productive investment, generating ever greater long-run problems in advancing or even maintaining the living standards of the public.

Making Economic Sense, p. 9

… deficits, whichever way you look at them, cause grave economic problems. If they are financed by the banking system, they are inflationary. But even if they are financed by the public, they will still cause severe crowding-out effects, diverting much-needed savings from productive private investment to wasteful government projects. And, furthermore, the greater the deficits the greater the permanent income tax burden …

Making Economic Sense, p. 10

Curing deficits by raising taxes is equivalent to curing someone’s bronchitis by shooting him. The “cure” is far worse than the disease.

Making Economic Sense, p. 10

… the only sound cure for deficits is the simple but virtually unmentioned one: cut the federal budget.

Making Economic Sense, p. 11

… the deficit is a grave problem, but the way to cut it is never to increase taxes (certainly not during a recession!) but instead to slash government expenditures. In contrast to the conventional media wisdom, increasing taxes is not, except strictly arithmetically, equivalent to cutting expenditures. Increasing taxes or expenditures aggravates the dangerous parasitic burden of the unproductive public sector …

Making Economic Sense, p. 22

… balancing the budget by increasing taxes is like curing influenza by shooting the patient; the cure is worse than the disease.

Making Economic Sense, p. 237

… the various proposed balanced-budget amendments suffer from many deep flaws …

Making Economic Sense, p. 237

… government spending cuts are the only sound way to cure deficits.

Making Economic Sense, p. 268

The one fiscal thing worse than a deficit is higher taxes.

Making Economic Sense, p. 438

… the government’s tax revenue and deficit revenue are both burdens imposed on production.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1293

… it is perfectly possible, theoretically, for the federal government to have a deficit (total spending greater than total revenues) which does not lead to any increase in the money supply and is therefore not inflationary.… If the deficit is financed strictly by selling new bonds to the public (individuals, corporations, insurance companies, etc.), then there is no increase in the money supply and hence no inflation. …

… the deficit will siphon off or “crowd out” vast sums of capital from productive private investment to unproductive and parasitic government spending. This will cripple productivity and economic growth, and raise interest rates considerably. Furthermore, the parasitic tax burden will increase in the future …

Mystery of Banking, p. 171

DEFLATION

Government intervention against deflation has brought us the unwelcome phenomenon of inflationary recession.

America’s Great Depression, p. xxxii

The long-run tendency of the free market economy, unhampered by monetary expansion, is a gently falling price level, falling as the productivity and output of goods and services continually increase.

America’s Great Depression, p. xxxiv

… so long as the society remains on this pure gold or silver “standard,” there will probably be only gradual annual increases in the supply of money, from the output of gold mines. The supply of gold is severely limited, and it is costly to mine further gold; and the great durability of gold means that any annual output will constitute a small portion of the total gold stock accumulated over the centuries. The currency will remain of roughly stable value; in a progressing economy, the increased annual production of goods will more than offset the gradual increase in the money stock. The result will be a gradual fall in the price level, an increase in the purchasing power of the currency unit or gold ounce, year after year. The gently falling price level will mean a steady annual rise in the purchasing power of the dollar or franc, encouraging the saving of money and investment in future production. A rising output and falling price level signifies a steady increase in the standard of living for each person in society. Typically, the cost of living falls steadily, while money wage rates remain the same, meaning that “real” wage rates, or the living standards of every worker, increase steadily year by year.

Case Against the Fed, pp. 20–21

… deflation only causes losses and bankruptcies if it is unexpected, revealing an excessive bidding up of wage rates and other business costs. Deflation, in addition to having the healthy impact of purging unsound investments and unsound banks from the economy, would have strictly limited and temporary effect; first, because while inflation is technically unlimited until the value of the currency is totally destroyed, deflation must necessarily be limited to the amount of bank expansion …

Classical Economics, p. 174

… a growing, unhampered economy will lead to secularly falling prices and costs, with the resulting higher living standards spread throughout the ranks of the consumers.

Economic Controversies, p. 248

… inflation is not ineluctably built into the economy, nor is it a prerequisite for a growing and thriving world. …

… falling prices put no damper whatsoever on business or economic prosperity. Thus, falling prices are apparently the normal functioning of a growing market economy.

For a New Liberty, p. 217

… the unhampered free-market economy will usually increase the supply of goods and services and thereby bring about a gently falling price level …

History of Money and Banking in the United States, p. 95

… absolute federal control of the banking system means that we never can enjoy an outright contraction of the money supply, and hence prices in general can never fall.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 122

In the unhampered free market economy, the supply of goods and services usually increases, as investment and productivity rise. This means that the tendency of the free market will be for prices to fall, some prices of course more than others …

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 230

Deflation, far from being a catastrophe, is the hallmark of sound and dynamic economic growth.

Making Economic Sense, pp. 15–16

… increased productivity and supply of goods will tend to lower prices on the free market. And this indeed is the general record of the Industrial Revolution in the West since the mid-eighteenth century.

But rather than a problem to be dreaded and combatted, falling prices through increased production is a wonderful long-run tendency of untrammelled capitalism.

Making Economic Sense, p. 251

In a progressing economy, given a constant supply of money, increased investment and a longer capital structure bring about lower money prices for factors and still lower prices for consumers’ goods.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 626

… falling prices resulting from increased productivity are beneficial to all and are precisely the means by which the fruits of industrial progress spread on the free market. Any interference with falling prices blocks the spread of the fruits of an advancing economy …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 850

… deflation can lead to continuing unemployment only if the government or the unions keep wage rates above the discounted marginal value products of labor. If wage rates are allowed to fall freely, no continuing unemployment will occur.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1007

An increased supply of goods produced will raise the demand for money and also therefore lower the overall level of prices.

Mystery of Banking, p. 59

Governments are inherently inflationary; historically, deflationary action by the government has been negligible and fleeting.

What Has Government Done to Our Money?, p. 75

DEMOCRACY

… democracy at best can only reduce the number of people being coerced; it does not eliminate coercion.

Economic Controversies, p. 482

… to protect the rights of the individual, general and prior majority consent to a rigid constitution that severely limits the powers of government is a far better guarantee than constant reliance on the good sense and discretion of the elected “people’s representatives.” If this is antidemocratic, so much the worse for “democracy.”

Economic Controversies, p. 555

… participatory democracy can work only in groups so tiny that they are, in effect, the “leaders” shorn of their following.

Economic Controversies, p. 630

… formal democracy was early seen to be compatible with despotism of the rulers over the ruled.

Education: Free and Compulsory, p. 39

… voting does not imply voluntary consent.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 187

… libertarians and other Americans must guard against a priori history: in this case, against the assumption that, in any conflict, the State which is more democratic or allows more internal freedom is necessarily or even presumptively the victim of aggression by the more dictatorial or totalitarian State.

For a New Liberty, pp. 363–64

… very few countries can pass the “democracy” test, or have ever done so …

Irrepressible Rothbard, p. 165

… democratic theory says that the State should have a monopoly of force in its territorial area.

Irrepressible Rothbard, p. 229

… libertarians believe that everyone has the natural right to self-ownership and ownership of property, but that there is no such thing as a natural “right” to vote.

Irrepressible Rothbard, p. 233

… the whole point of free elections is to make peaceful change possible.

Left and Right, p. 176

… no libertarian can be unsympathetic to an organized drive for non-participation in elections …

… it is still not immoral to use the electoral process when a significant choice presents itself. The use of the electoral process is not, then, immoral per se, as the non-voting camp would have us believe.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, pp. 261–62

… if the public is not to be allowed to vote on issues that affect their lives, why should they be allowed to vote for the people who will make those very decisions: for the beloved President, the Congress, etc.?

Making Economic Sense, pp. 111–12

… “democracy” has been treated as a shibboleth, as an ultimate moral absolute, virtually replacing all other moral principles including the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount.… The overriding imperative of democracy is considered self-evident and sacred, apparently above discussion among mere mortals.

What, in fact, is so great about democracy? Democracy is scarcely a virtue in itself, much less an overriding one, and not nearly as important as liberty, property rights, a free market, or strictly limited government. Democracy is simply a process, a means of selecting government rulers and policies. It has but one virtue, but this can indeed be an important one: it provides a peaceful means for the triumph of the popular will.

Making Economic Sense, pp. 486–87

… the partisans of intervention assume that individuals are not competent to run their own affairs or to hire experts to advise them, but also assume that these same individuals are competent to vote for these experts at the ballot box. They are further assuming that the mass of supposedly incompetent consumers are competent to choose not only those who will rule over themselves, but also over the competent individuals in society. Yet such absurd and contradictory assumptions lie at the root of every program for “democratic” intervention in the affairs of the people.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 886

Lacking the direct test of success or failure, the voter tends to turn, not to those politicians whose policies have the best chance of success, but to those who can best “sell” their propaganda ability. Without grasping logical chains of deduction, the average voter will never be able to discover the errors that his ruler makes.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 887

Since there is no direct test in government, and, indeed, little or no personal contact or relationship between politician or expert and voter, there is no way by which the voter can gauge the true expertise of the man he is voting for.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 889

The voter, by voting for some particular candidate, demonstrates only a relative preference for him over one or two other potential rulers—and he must do this, let us not forget, within the framework of the coercive rule that, whether he votes or not, one of these men will rule over him for the next few years.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 890

… government officials will tend to regard themselves as only transitory owners of “public” resources. While a private owner, secure in his property and its capital value, may plan the use of his resource over a long period of time in the future, the government official must exploit “his” property as quickly as he can, since he has no security of tenure. And even the most securely entrenched civil servant must concentrate on present use, because government officials cannot usually sell the capitalized value of their property, as private owners can. In short, except in the case of the “private property” of a hereditary monarch, government officials own the current use of resources, but not their capital value. But if a resource itself cannot be owned, but only its current use, there will rapidly ensue an uneconomic exhaustion of the resource, since it will be to no one’s benefit to conserve it over a period of time, and yet to each owner’s advantage to use it up quickly. It is particularly curious, then, that almost all writers parrot the notion that private owners, possessing time preference, must take the “short view” in using their resources, while only government officials are properly equipped to exercise the “long view.” The truth is precisely the reverse. The private individual, secure in his capital ownership, can afford to take the long view because of his interest in maintaining the capital value of his resource. It is the government official who must take and run, who must exploit the property quickly while he is still in command.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, pp. 956–57

Coercion would exist even in the most direct democracies.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1066n8

Voting is a highly marginal activity because (a) the voter obtains no direct benefits from his act of voting, and (b) his aliquot power over the final decision is so small that his abstention from voting would make no appreciable difference to the final outcome. In short, in contrast to all other choices a man may make, in political voting he has practically no power over the outcome, and the outcome would make little direct difference to him anyway.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1248

… no government official regards himself as more than a transitory owner. As a result, while a private owner, secure in his property and owning its capital value, plans the use of his resource over a long period of time, the government official must milk the property as quickly as he can, since he has no security of ownership. Further, even the entrenched civil servant must do the same, for no government official can sell the capitalized value of his property, as private owners can. In short, government officials own the use of resources, but not their capital value (except in the case of the “private property” of a hereditary monarch). When only the current use can be owned, but not the resource itself, there will quickly ensue uneconomic exhaustion of the resources, since it will be to no one’s benefit to conserve it over a period of time and to every owner’s advantage to use it up as quickly as possible. In the same way, government officials will consume their property as rapidly as possible.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1278

… democracy is compatible neither with the purely free society nor with socialism.… only those two societies are stable … all intermediary mixtures are in “unstable equilibrium” and always tending toward one or the other pole. This means that democracy, in essence, is itself an unstable and transitional form of government.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1282

For if someone contends that the majority in Country X should govern that country, then it could be argued with equal validity that the majority of a certain district within Country X should be allowed to govern itself and secede from the larger country, and this subdividing process can logically proceed down to the village block, the apartment house, and, finally, each individual, thus marking the end of all democratic government through reduction to individual self-government. But if such a right of secession is denied, then the national democrat must concede that the more numerous population of other countries should have a right to outvote his country; and so he must proceed upwards to a world government run by a world majority rule. In short, the democrat who favors national government is self-contradictory; he must favor a world government or none at all.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1283

The average voter is necessarily less qualified to choose persons to decide issues than he is to vote on the issues themselves.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1285

… the very concept of an “independent judiciary” contradicts the theory of democratic rule (whether classical or modern). If the judiciary is really independent of the popular will, then it functions, at least within its own sphere, as an oligarchic dictatorship, and we can no longer call the government a “democracy.”

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1286

… the arguments for democracy are thus shown to be a maze of fallacy and contradiction …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1291

… it is self-contradictory to contend that people cannot be trusted to make moral decisions in their daily lives but can be trusted to vote for or accept leaders who are morally wiser than they.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1303

DEMONSTRATED PREFERENCE

Since all action is determined by the choice of the actor, any particular act demonstrates a person’s preference for this action. From this it follows that if A and B voluntarily agree to make an exchange (whether the exchange be material or spiritual), both parties are doing so because they expect to benefit.

Economic Controversies, p. 20

… action demonstrates preference …

Economic Controversies, p. 90

… the economist, doesn’t know what anyone’s value scales are except as those value preferences are demonstrated by a person’s concrete action.

Economic Controversies, p. 93

The concept of demonstrated preference is simply this: that actual choice reveals, or demonstrates, a man’s preferences; that is, that his preferences are deducible from what he has chosen in action.

Economic Controversies, p. 290

… demonstrated preference only treats values as revealed through chosen action.

Economic Controversies, p. 321

In the case of voluntary purchase on the market, as we have seen, the consumer demonstrates by his purchase that he values the good or service he buys more than the price he pays; but in paying taxes he demonstrates no such thing—only the desire not to be the recipient of further violence by the State. We have no idea how much the taxpayers would value these services, if indeed they valued them at all.

Economic Controversies, p. 463

DEPOSIT INSURANCE

… if no business firm can ever be “insured,” how much more is this true of a fractional-reserve bank! For the very essence of fractional-reserve banking is that the bank is inherently insolvent, and that its insolvency will be revealed as soon as the deluded public realizes what is going on, and insists on repossessing the money which it mistakenly thinks is being safeguarded in its trusted neighborhood bank. If no business firm can be insured, then an industry consisting of hundreds of insolvent firms is surely the last institution about which anyone can mention “insurance” with a straight face. “Deposit insurance” is simply a fraudulent racket, and a cruel one at that, since it may plunder the life savings and the money stock of the entire public.

Case Against the Fed, p. 137

… fractional-reserve bank deposits are in no sense “insurable.”

Case Against the Fed, p. 150n44

The very idea of “deposit insurance” is a swindle …

Making Economic Sense, p. 284

The very concept of “deposit insurance” is fraudulent; how can you “insure” an entire industry that is inherently insolvent? It would be like insuring the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.

Making Economic Sense, p. 290

It is impossible to “insure” a firm, even less so an industry, that is inherently insolvent. Fractional reserve banks, being inherently insolvent, are uninsurable.

Making Economic Sense, p. 327

Another recent American device to abolish the confidence limitation on bank credit is “deposit insurance,” whereby the government guarantees to furnish paper money to redeem the banks’ demand liabilities. These and similar devices remove the market brakes on rampant credit expansion.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1014

DEVELOPMENT

The backward countries may send engineers aplenty to absorb “American know-how,” but this will not bring to these countries the great amount of investment needed to raise their standard of living appreciably. What they need, in short, is saving: this is the factor limiting investment.

America’s Great Depression, p. 71

Capital is the product of human energy and land … and time. The time-block is the reason that people must abstain from consumption, and save. Laboriously, these savings are invested in capital goods. We are further along the road to a high standard of living than India or China because we and our ancestors have saved and invested in capital goods, building up a great structure of capital. India and China, too, could achieve our living standards after years of saving and investment.

Economic Controversies, p. 577

… all late-developing countries borrow technology from the existing industrialized countries.… So what? The important point for economic development is not technology anyway, but the saving and investment of capital.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 380

What is lacking in these countries is not knowledge of Western technological methods (“know-how”); that is learned easily enough. The service of imparting knowledge, in person or in book form, can be paid for readily. What is lacking is the supply of saved capital needed to put the advanced methods into effect. The Wage rates are low in many foreign countries because capital equipment is small and technology is primitive.

Making Economic Sense, p. 18

The root of famine lies not in the gods or in the stars but in the actions of man. …

… The answer to famine is to liberate the peasantry of the Third World from the brutality and exploitation of the State ruling class. The answers to famine are private property and free markets.

Making Economic Sense, pp. 85–86

The world, even the Third World, does not suffer from too many people, or from excessive population growth. (Indeed, the rate of world population growth, although not yet its absolute numbers, is already declining.) The Third World suffers from a lack of economic development due to its lack of rights of private property, its government-imposed production controls, and its acceptance of government foreign aid that squeezes out private investment. The result is too little productive savings, investment, entrepreneurship, and market opportunity.

Making Economic Sense, p. 153

… the only thing we can do for the impoverished Second and Third Worlds—is to tell them: look, here is how we became prosperous: by defending the rights of private property and free exchange, by allowing people to save and invest and keep their earnings. If you want to prosper, follow our forefathers: privatize and deregulate. Get your government off your backs and out of your lives.

Making Economic Sense, p. 406

African peasant will gain little from looking at pictures of American tractors; what he lacks is the saved capital needed to purchase them. That is the important limit on his investment and on his production.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 542

An underdeveloped country can grow only in the same ways as a more advanced country: largely via capital investment.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 970

The absence of famine in capitalist society is not a providential coincidence.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1316

The poor country can best progress by permitting private enterprise and investment to function and by allowing natives and foreigners to invest there unhampered and unmolested.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1335

Man progresses not by doggedly climbing over obstacles but by eliminating them!

Rothbard vs. the Philosophers, p. 56

The primitive world is—indeed all worlds before the Industrial Revolution were—constantly racked by famine and by plague.… Famine emerges from a lack of interlocal trade; when one locality’s food crop fails, … the bulk of the people starve. It is precisely the permeation of the free market throughout the world that has virtually ended this scourge of famine by permitting trade between areas.

Rothbard vs. the Philosophers, pp. 125–26

… the one important item in raising the living standards of the undeveloped countries—the crucial item—is an increase in the quantity of per-capita capital invested …

Strictly Confidential, p. 302

DISTRIBUTION

… there are no laws of macro-income distribution. Economics only establishes “micro”-laws determining price, including the prices of the various factors of production. …

… on the market there is no separate “distribution” of income process, as there indeed would be under a state-controlled, or socialist economy. “Distribution” is the indirect consequence of free production, exchange, and price determination.

Classical Economics, p. 93

There is no distributional process apart from the production and exchange processes of the market; hence the very concept of “distribution” becomes meaningless on the free market.

Economic Controversies, p. 321

There is no separate “distribution”; there is only production and its corollary, exchange.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 477

There is no separation between production and distribution, and it is completely erroneous for writers to treat the productive system as if producers dump their product onto some stockpile, to be later “distributed” in some way to the people in the society. “Distribution” is only the other side of the coin of production on the market.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 623

There is no distributional process apart from the production and exchange of the market; hence, the very concept of “distribution” as something separate becomes meaningless.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1155

DIVISION OF LABOR

… the crucial specialization of labor is not simply within a factory (as in Smith’s famous pin factory) but ranges over the entire economy, and forms the basis for all exchange between producers.

Classical Economics, p. 23

The eradication of the division of labor would quickly bring starvation and economic misery to all. The abolition of all structures of human interrelation would bring enormous social and spiritual depravation to every person.

Classical Economics, p. 332

All of us reap the benefits of the social division of labor, and the capital invested by our ancestors.

Economic Controversies, p. 582

No one can fully develop his powers in any direction without engaging in specialization.… the developing division of labor is a key to the advance of any economy above the most primitive level. A necessary condition for any sort of developed economy, the division of labor is also requisite to the development of any sort of civilized society.… Without the opportunity to specialize in whatever he can do best, no person can develop his powers to the full; no man, then, could be fully human.

Economic Controversies, p. 603

… specialization is grounded in basic human nature …

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, p. 11

… the extent of the division of labor in society is necessarily limited by the extent of the market for the products.

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, p. 13

The division of labor is a key to the preservation of human life …

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, p. 421

One of the most important facts about human nature is the great diversity among individuals. Of course, there are certain broad characteristics, physical and mental, which are common to all human beings. But more than any other species, individual men are distinct and separate individuals. Not only is each fingerprint unique, each personality is unique as well. Each person is unique in his tastes, interests, abilities, and chosen activities. Animal activities, routine and guided by instinct, tend to be uniform and alike. But human individuals, despite similarities in ends and values, despite mutual influences, tend to express the unique imprint of the individual’s own personality. The development of individual variety tends to be both the cause and the effect of the progress of civilization. As civilization progresses, there is more opportunity for the development of a person’s reasoning and tastes in a growing variety of fields. And from such opportunities come the advancement of knowledge and progress which in turn add to the society’s civilization.

Education: Free and Compulsory, pp. 4–5

… the division of labor—a system absolutely crucial to the survival of man in the age of mass population as well as to the full development of the faculties and abilities of every man.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 197

… specialization by each individual may have occurred for any one of three different reasons or any combination of the three: (a) differences in suitability and yield of the nature-given factors; (b) differences in given capital and durable consumers’ goods; and (c) differences in skill and in the desirability of different types of labor.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 95

Exchange, a productive process for both participants, implies specialization of production, or division of labor.

… the very fact of exchange and the division of labor implies that it must be more productive for all concerned than isolated, autistic labor.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 96

… full-time specialization in a line of production is likely to improve each person’s productivity in that line and intensify the relative superiority of each.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 97

… in explaining the origins of society, there is no need to conjure up any mystic communion or “sense of belonging” among individuals. Individuals recognize, through the use of reason, the advantages of exchange resulting from the higher productivity of the division of labor, and they proceed to follow this advantageous course.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 100

… in a world of voluntary social cooperation through mutually beneficial exchanges, where one man’s gain is another man’s gain, it is obvious that great scope is provided for the development of social sympathy and human friendships. It is the peaceful, co-operative society that creates favorable conditions for feelings of friendship among men.

… the social relations formed by the division of labor tend to be permanent as individuals specialize in different tasks and continue to produce in those fields.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 101

… the division of labor on a market increases productivity …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 187

DRUGS

… outlawing something because it may harm the user leads straight down the logical garden path to our totalitarian cage …

For a New Liberty, p. 136

There is, of course, a very strong connection between addiction and crime, but the connection is the reverse of any argument for prohibition. Crimes are committed by addicts driven to theft by the high price of drugs caused by the outlawry itself! If narcotics were legal, the supply would greatly increase, the high costs of black markets and police payoffs would disappear, and the price would be low enough to eliminate most addict-caused crime.

For a New Liberty, p. 136

The libertarian case for legalization of anything has nothing whatever to do with whether it is harmful or not. The libertarian maintains that it is up to each individual to run his own life …

… calling for the legalization of anything never implies for the libertarian any sort of advocacy of the thing itself. The libertarian, for example, favors the legalization of gambling, not because we advocate gambling as a good thing, but because this is part of every person’s right to order his own life in his own way.

There is an excellent way, I submit, to make the libertarian position crystal clear in the case of marijuana; it is a way, furthermore, that will extend the emphasis of the libertarian position itself. And that way is always to link marijuana with heroin. For no one says that heroin is harmless; and, what is more no one is running around the country advocating the “philosophy” of taking heroin as a method of “greening” or of “expanding one’s consciousness.” Every thinking person hates and reviles heroin. So therefore if we always link our advocacy of legalization of the two drugs there will be no possible confusion or implication that we favor pot for its own sake, and, furthermore, the idea of legalizing heroin would also be advanced at the same time. If someone asks us whether we favor legalizing pot, let us therefore always answer: “Yes, and heroin too, and for the same reason.” Let the special pleaders wince though they may.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 339

… the minimum drinking law is not only monstrous and despotic, it is almost impossible to enforce.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 1182

… the general drunken driving laws are deeply flawed as well. …

… there should be no penalties whatever on drinking, on the sale or purchase of liquor, or on driving while drunk, regardless of age or gender. On the other hand, if someone actually causes a real, honest-to-God accident, then penalties can and should be levied, based, for example, on the degree of voluntariness in causing the damage, and certainly the imbibing of alcohol, contrary to the blatherings of determinists, is a voluntary act. It is there, after an accident, after damages have been committed, that penalties or punishment can come into play. Anything else is simply a criminal invasion of the rights of the innocent, of those who have not committed a crime or damages.