Rothbard A to Z

FAIRNESS

Whenever someone starts talking about “fair competition” or indeed, about “fairness” in general, it is time to keep a sharp eye on your wallet, for it is about to be picked.

Making Economic Sense, p. 359

… there is no “just” (or “fair”) price outside the market price.

Making Economic Sense, p. 360

Whenever anyone talks about “fairness,” the average American had better look to his wallet.

Making Economic Sense, p. 378

FEMINISM

… female marginal productivity is lower than that of men. If that were not the case, then employers could reap extra profits by hiring only women at the lower wage rates.

Economic Controversies, p. 916

… every culture and civilization in history, from the simplest to the most complex, has been dominated by males.

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature, p. 12

… at the root of the women’s liberation movement is resentment against the very existence of women as a distinctive entity.

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature, p. 14

… the overwhelming majority of women work a few years and then take a large chunk of their productive years, to raise children, after which they may or may not decide to return to the labor force. As a result, they tend to enter, or to find, jobs largely in those industries and in that type of work that does not require a long-term commitment to a career. Furthermore, they tend to find jobs in those occupations where the cost of training new people, or of losing old ones, is relatively low. These tend to be lower-paying occupations than those that require a long-term commitment or where costs of training or turnover are high. This general tendency to take out years for child raising also accounts for a good deal of the failure to promote women to higher-ranking and, therefore, higher-paying jobs and hence for the low female “quotas” in these areas.

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature, pp. 159–60

If women have persistently lower pay and poorer jobs, even after correcting for the motherhood-dropout, then the simple reason must be that their marginal productivity tends to be lower than men’s.

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature, p. 160

… in contrast to the women’s lib forces who tend to blame capitalism as well as male tyrants for centuries-old discrimination, it was precisely capitalism and the “capitalist revolution” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that freed women from male oppression and set each woman free to find her best level.

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature, pp. 160–61

… the feminists are setting out to destroy romance …

Irrepressible Rothbard, p. 366

… every woman has the absolute right to own and control her own body.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 214

FETTER, FRANK

Frank Albert Fetter (1863–1949) was the leader in the United States of the early Austrian school of economics.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 1

Fetter’s point of departure was the Austrian insights that (1) prices of consumer goods are determined by their relative marginal utility to consumers; and (2) that factor prices are determined by their marginal productivity in producing these consumer goods. In other words, the market system imputes consumer goods prices (determined by marginal utility) to the factors of production in accordance with their marginal productivities.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 2

Frank Fetter’s imaginative contribution to rent theory was to seize upon the businessman’s commonsense definition of rent as the price per unit service of any factor, that is, as the price of renting out that factor per unit time. But if rent is simply the payment for renting out, every unit of a factor of production earns a rent … Whatever any piece of land earns per year or per month is rent; whatever a capital good earns per unit time is also a rent.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 2

… Fetter was the first economist to explain interest rate solely by time preference. Every factor of production earns it rent in accordance with its marginal product, and every future rental return is discounted, or “capitalized,” to get its present value in accordance with the overall social rate of time preference.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 4

Not only is Fetter’s pure time-preference, or capitalization, theory the only one that offers an integrated explanation of interest on slaves, land, and capital goods, but it is also, as he pointed out, the only one that provides an integrated explanation of interest on consumption loans and on productive loans. For even the productivity theorists had to concede that at least in the case of consumer loans interest was occasioned by time preference.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 17

… Fetter developed a monetary theory of the business cycle …

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 19

The sole importance of time preference has been grasped by extremely few economists, notably by Frank A. Fetter and Ludwig von Mises.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 389n12

Fetter’s only mistake in interest theory was to deny Fisher’s assertion that time preference (or, as Fisher called it, “impatience”) is a universal and necessary fact of human action.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 425n27

… Frank A. Fetter pointed out years ago, only time preference can integrate interest on consumers’ as well as on producers’ loans into a single unified explanation.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 451n44

Fetter’s conception [of rent] has, unfortunately, had little influence on economic thought. It is not only in accord with common usage; it provides a unifying principle, enabling a coherent explanation of the price determination of unit services and of the whole goods that embody them. Without the rental-price concept, it is difficult to distinguish between the pricing of unit services and of whole goods.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 488n22

Fetter’s main error in capital theory was his belief that capitalization meant the scrapping of any distinction between capital goods and land.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 492n25

FIAT MONEY

Fiat currency is inherently the money of absolute statism. Money is the central commodity, the nerve center, as it were, of the modern market economy, and any system that vests the absolute control of that commodity in the hands of the State is hopelessly incompatible with a free-market economy or, ultimately, with individual liberty itself.

Economic Controversies, p. 908

The idea prevails that to favor gold or silver money is to be a mossback reactionary; nothing could be further from the truth. For gold (as well as silver) is the People’s Money; it is a valuable commodity that has developed, on the free market, as the monetary means of exchange. Gold has been replaced, at the dictate of the State, by fiat paper—by pieces of paper issued and imprinted by the government. Gold cannot be produced very easily; it must be dug laboriously out of the ground. But if paper tickets are to be money, and the State is to have the sole power to issue these virtually costless tickets, then we are all at the mercy of this gang of legalized, sovereign counterfeiters. Yet this is the accepted monetary system of today.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 37

Once the public becomes accustomed to the dollar or pound as a unit of weight of gold, then the government can sever the accustomed name from its base in the market-produced commodity, and seize the monopoly of supplying it as a flat currency …

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 993

When the government “goes off” the gold standard, central bank notes then become legal tender and virtually the standard money.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1017

… public confidence in, and hence demand for, paper money depends on the ultimate confidence—or lack thereof—of the public in the viability of the issuing government.

Mystery of Banking, p. 66

FINANCE

… the very concept of capital value implies a preceding process of capitalization, a summing up of expected future rental incomes from a good, discounted by a rate of interest. Rent, or productivity, and interest, or time preference, are logically prerequisite to the determination of capital value.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 5

… since capital instruments only mature into consumer goods at various times in the future, capital goods are really future goods, not present goods.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 11

… interest rate determination in the market for productive loans. The supply curve of loanable funds is conventionally explained by time preference, while the demand curve for loans by business firms is explained by reference to the “marginal productivity of capital” …

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 11

… every factor of production (whether labor, land, or capital goods) earns, not its marginal value productivity, according to the current conventional explanation, but its marginal productivity discounted by the interest rate or time preference; and the capitalist earns the discount.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 12

Rent reflects the (marginal) productivity of scarce factors of production, and interest reflects the present valuation of future services and therefore depends, not at all on roundaboutness, but on the postponement of use.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 13

The capital value of any good the becomes the sum of its expected future rents, discounted by the rate of time preference for present over future goods, which is the rate of interest. In short, the capital value of a good is the “capitalization” of its future rents in accordance with the rate of time preference or interest. Therefore, marginal utility accounts for the valuations and prices of consumer goods; the rent of each factor of production is determined by its productivity in eventually producing consumer goods; and interest arises in the capitalization, in accordance with time preference, of the present worth of the expected future rents of durable goods.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, pp. 13–14

… the process of capitalization and time discount applies as fully and equally to land as it does to capital goods. From the point of view of capitalization, there is no fundamental distinction between land and produced means of production.

Capital, Interest, and Rent, p. 16

… virtually everyone owns a few shares of stock, or owns shares of pension funds invested in stocks or bonds. “Every man a capitalist” is, in today’s world, a pervasive condition rather than a hopeful slogan for the future.

… stockholders are like consumers. The individual consumer has little say over the types and amounts of goods and services produced, but the mass of consumers together exert total economic power.… Large stockholders will exert direct control of a corporation, but far more indirect power lies in the hands of the mass of small shareholders, just as the ultimate economic power over each firm is wielded by the mass of consumers in their decisions on whether and how much to buy of the firm’s product.

Classical Economics, p. 421

… every firm aims always at maximizing its psychic profit.

Economic Controversies, p. 107

The selling-price of an asset on the market will be the capitalized value of its expected future rents: the capitalization to take place at the going rate of interest. The rate of interest is the price of “time” … any asset will sell at the capitalized value of its future earnings …

Economic Controversies, p. 593

All businesses, all industries on the market, tend, in the long run, to yield about the same rate of return; if not, then capital and resources will flow out of the poorer earning and into the better earning industry until rates of return are equalized.

Economic Controversies, p. 711

… the present capital value of land or other capital good on the market tends to equal the sum of its expected annual future rents, or returns, discounted by the market rate of time-preference, or rate of interest.

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, p. 400

The expected future good is discounted by the actor according to his rate of time preference. The present value of his expected future good is compared to the present value of the present good on the actor’s value scale, and the decision to save and invest is made accordingly. It is clear that the higher the rate of discount, the lower the present value of the future good will be, and the greater the likelihood of abstaining from the investment. On the other hand, the lower the rate of discount, the higher the present value of future goods will be on the actor’s value scale, and the greater the likelihood of its being greater than the value of present goods forgone, and hence of his making the investment.

Thus, the investment decision will be determined by which is greater: the present value of the future good or the present value of present goods forgone.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, pp. 62–63

The market price of the good as a whole is equal to the present value of the sum of its expected (future) rental incomes or rental prices.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 292

The capital value at any time is based on expectations of future rental prices.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 293

… the equilibrium relation between present capital value and actual future rents is only a long-range tendency fostered by the market’s encouragement of successful forecasters.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 294

In actuality, time preference exists, and the present value of the future rentals is always less by a certain discount than the sum of these rentals. If this were not so, the capital value of very durable goods, goods which wear out only imperceptibly, would be almost infinite.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 296

… entrepreneurs … will tend to invest in the outright purchase of (already existing) durable consumers’ goods when they believe that the present capital value of the good on the market is less than the sum of future rentals (discounted by time preference) that they will receive.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 297

… the term “value of capital” signifies the purchasing power of a durable good in terms of money on the market.… When a good is being subjectively valued, it is ranked by someone in relation to other goods on his value scale. When a good is being “evaluated” in the sense of finding out its capital value, the evaluator estimates how much the good could be sold for in terms of money. This sort of activity is known as appraisement and is to be distinguished from subjective evaluation.… appraisement is fundamental to the entire economic system in an economy of indirect exchange. Not only do the renting and selling of consumers’ goods rest on appraisement and on hope of monetary profits, but so does the activity of all the investing producers, the keystone of the entire productive system.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 316

… present money is worth more than present expectations of the same amount of future money.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 376

The capital value of a firm’s assets will be the appraised value of all the productive assets, including cash, land, capital goods, and finished products. The capital value of the firm is increased at any given time by new investment and is maintained by the reinvestments of the owners after the finished product is sold.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 430

Whether saved capital is channeled into investments via stocks or via loans is unimportant. The only difference is in the legal technicalities.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 437

We must conclude that economically and even in basic law, there is no difference between shareholders and productive creditors; both are equally suppliers of capital, both receive interest return as determined on the general time market, both own their proportionate share of the company’s assets. The differences between the two are only technical and semantic.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 439

The marginal value product is the monetary revenue that may be attributed, or “imputed,” to one service unit of the factor … This MVP (marginal value product) is discounted by the social rate of time preference, i.e., by the going rate of interest.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 456

… in the ERE every isolable factor will earn its DMVP, and this will be its price. As a result, each factor will earn its DMVP, and the capitalist will earn the going rate of interest for purchasing future goods with his savings. In the ERE, as we have seen, all capitalists will earn the same going rate of interest, and no pure profit will then be reaped. The sale price of a good will be necessarily equal to the sum of the DMVPs of its factors plus the rate of interest return on the investment.

… Any price higher than the discounted marginal value product of a factor service will not long be paid by a capitalist; any price lower will be raised by the competitive actions of entrepreneurs bidding away these factors through offers of higher prices. These actions will lead, in the former case to the disappearance of losses, in the latter, to the disappearance of pure profit.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 457

… there takes place the inexorable tendency in the market for the price of all units of any good to be uniform throughout its market. This must apply to a productive factor just as to any other good.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 462

… the price of a factor is determined by its diminishing general (discounted) marginal value productivity curve intersecting with the given supply (stock) of the factor in the economy.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 465

What is the marginal value product? It is the amount of revenue intake attributable to a unit of a factor.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 466

… the marginal value product of a factor service unit is equal to its marginal physical product times the price of that product.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 467

The price of the unit service of every factor, then, is equal to its discounted marginal value product. This is true of all factors, whether they be “original” (land and labor) or “produced” (capital goods).

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, pp. 479–80

The price of the “whole good,” also known as the capital value of the good, is equal to the sum of the expected future rents discounted by what we then vaguely called a time-preference factor and which we now know is the rate of interest. The capital value, or price of the good as a whole, then, is completely dependent on the rental prices of the good, its physical durability, and the rate of interest.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 489

The principle of the determination of “capital values,” i.e., prices of “whole goods,” is known as capitalization, or the capitalizing of rents. This principle applies to all goods, not simply capital goods … The rental price, or rent, of a factor of production is equal, as we have seen, to its discounted marginal value product. The capital value of a “whole factor” will be equal to the sum of its future rents, or the sum of its DMVPs. This capital value will be the price for which the “whole good” will exchange on the market. It is at this capital value that a unit of a “whole good” such as a house, a piano, a machine, an acre of land, etc., will sell on the market. There is clearly no sense to capitalization if there is no market, or price, for the “whole good.” The capital value is the appraised value set by the market on the basis of rents, durability, and the interest rate.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 490

The capital value of every durable good will equal the discounted value of the sum of future rents to be obtained from the good, the discount being the rate of interest.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 625

The further away in time any economic event, the more its impact will be discounted in the present by the interest rate.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 768

It is incorrect, however, to say that government loans are “riskless” and therefore that the interest yield on government bonds may be taken to be the pure interest rate.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1027n136

The lender is also an entrepreneur and part owner, regardless of his legal status.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1274

… a bond is directly a claim to ownership of a certain amount of money and, in the final analysis, is an aliquot ownership in the company’s physical property.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, pp. 1342–43

… all estimates of future earning power are necessarily subjective estimates.… the capital values of any business firm happen to be the discounted sum of expected future earnings of that firm, and those expected earnings, in the nature of reality and of the market, are necessarily speculative and subjective.

Progressive Era, p. 217

FISHER, IRVING

… Fisher uphold[s] as an ethical and economic ideal the maintenance of a stable, constant price level.

America’s Great Depression, p. xxxiii

… Professor Irving Fisher launched his career as head of the “stable money” movement in the United States.

America’s Great Depression, p. 174

Irving Fisher … hankered after some form of “commodity dollar,” in which the dollar is defined, not as a weight of a single commodity, but in terms of a “market basket” of two or many more commodities. There are many deep-seated flaws in this approach.

Economic Controversies, pp. 761–62

Irving Fisher’s intense desire for a constant price level stemmed from his own fallacious philosophic notion that, just as science is based upon measurable standards (such as a yard comprising 36 inches), so money is supposed to be a measure of values and prices. But since there is no single price level, his very idea, far from being scientific, is a hopeless chimera.

Economic Controversies, p. 762

… [advocated] the 100 percent fiat paper reserve tradition of the Chicago School …

Economic Controversies, p. 881

Fisher believed … that on the one hand there is a world of individual prices determined by supply and demand, but on the other hand there is an aggregate “price level” determined by the supply of money and its velocity of turnover, and never the twain do meet. The aggregate, macro, sphere is supposed to be the fit subject of government planning and manipulation, again supposedly without affecting or interfering with the micro area of individual prices.

Economic Controversies, p. 904

… the business cycle is supposed to be merely a “dance,” in other words, an essentially random and causally unconnected series of ups and downs in the “price level.” The business cycle, in short, is random and needless variations in the aggregate level of prices. Therefore, since the free market gives rise to this random “dance,” the cure for the business cycle is for the government to take measures to stabilize the price level, to keep that level constant. …

… Fisher’s original groundwork was a total misunderstanding of the nature of money …

Economic Controversies, p. 904

… Irving Fisher refused to recognize the true nature of money, or the proper function of the gold standard, or the name of a currency as a unit of weight in gold. Instead, he held these names of paper money substitutes issued by the various governments to be absolute, to be money.

Economic Controversies, p. 905

It was Irving Fisher, his doctrines, and his influence, which was in large part responsible for the disastrous inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve System during the 1920s, and therefore for the subsequent holocaust of 1929.

Economic Controversies, p. 905

… during the 1930s, Fisher and the Chicago School were “pre-Keynes Keynesians,” and were, for that reason, considered quite radical and socialistic—and with good reason.

Economic Controversies, p. 907

From his earliest days, Irving Fisher was—properly—considered to be a monetary radical and a statist for his desire to scrap the gold standard. Fisher realized that the gold standard—under which the basic money is a commodity mined on the free market rather than created by government—was incompatible with his overpowering desire to stabilize the price level. Hence, Fisher was one of the first modern economists to call for the abolition of the gold standard and its replacement by fiat money.

Economic Controversies, p. 907

… Fisher’s equation of exchange is pernicious …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 836

The Fisherine equation has been popular for many years because it has been thought to convey useful economic knowledge. It appears to be demonstrating the plausible (on other grounds) quantity theory of money. Actually, it has only been misleading.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 842

… Fisher did not realize that there could be fundamental differences in the nature of the sciences of physics and of purposeful human action.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 847

FORECASTING

People try to forecast and anticipate changes as best they can, but such forecasting can never be reduced to an exact science. Entrepreneurs are in the business of forecasting changes on the market, both for conditions of demand and of supply. The more successful ones make profits pari passus with their accuracy of judgment, while the unsuccessful forecasters fall by the wayside. As a result, the successful entrepreneurs on the free market will be the ones most adept at anticipating future business conditions. Yet, the forecasting can never be perfect, and entrepreneurs will continue to differ in the success of their judgments. If this were not so, no profits or losses would ever be made in business.

America’s Great Depression, p. 4

… the predictions of the praxeologist are precisely the same kind as those of the natural scientist.

Economic Controversies, p. 38

… forecasting is a task very similar to the work of the historian.… He uses all his nomothetic knowledge, economic, political, military, psychological, and technological; but at best his work is an art rather than an exact science. Thus, some forecasters will inevitably be better than others, and the superior forecasters will make the more successful entrepreneurs, speculators, generals, and bettors on elections or football games.

Economic Controversies, p. 41

Forecasting can only be an entrepreneurial art … forecasts must also be guided by insight, by Verstehen, into present and future conditions and into the values, preferences, and changing habits of other human actors.

Economic Controversies, p. 174

Good forecasters will be rewarded with higher profits and incomes; poor forecasters will suffer losses and finally leave the business.

Economic Controversies, p. 453

So long as men have free will and change their values and choices, and so long as knowledge changes and accumulates, scientific forecasting of the future will be impossible.

Economic Controversies, p. 922

… forecasting is not and cannot be a science; at best it is an art, and the best such “artists” are those who have a “feel” for the conditions of their particular markets. There is a process of natural selection on the market which brings the better forecasters to the fore and discourages the poorer ones: the making of profits and capital gains and the suffering of losses. The poor forecaster on the commodity or stock markets will not last long in his chosen occupation.

Economic Controversies, p. 923

The market economy, moreover, contains a built-in mechanism, a kind of natural selection, that ensures the survival and the flourishing of the superior forecaster and the weeding-out of the inferior ones. For the more profits reaped by the better forecasters, the greater become their business responsibilities, and the more they will have available to invest in the productive system. On the other hand, a few years of making losses will drive the poorer forecasters and entrepreneurs out of business altogether and push them into the ranks of salaried employees.

Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure, pp. 16–17

Man is prone to error and even folly …

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, p. 9

… it is impossible for observers to predict voluntary social arrangements, including the provision of goods and services, on the free market.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 536

… forecasts based on econometric mumbo-jumbo have done less well than simple extrapolation of trend! …

Any schmo with a ruler can extrapolate trend, but the real trick in forecasting is to predict changes in trend, and that can be done neither with rulers nor with equations and computers. That’s where all the errors come in.

So why are all the forecasts alike? Because there is security riding in packs. If all economists are wrong together, well that’s the luck of the draw, and no one economist will be blamed by his clients. But if an economist is very different from his colleagues, and he’s proved wrong, then he will lose clients in droves.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 1073

… economists don’t think anymore; they just plug in obsolescent numbers, and then wonder why their forecasts all go blooey.

Making Economic Sense, p. 22

Monetary profits come not simply from correct forecasting, but from forecasting more correctly than other individuals.… since successful forecasters are, in effect, rewarded, and poor ones penalized, and in proportion to good and poor judgment respectively, the market tends to establish and maintain as high a quality of forecasting as is humanly possible to achieve.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 293

… the ever-present uncertainty of the future causes the more able forecasters to gain and the less able ones to lose.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 296

Better forecasters will earn profits, and poorer ones will suffer losses.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 297

… quality of judgment and accuracy of forecast play an enormous role in the incomes acquired by capitalists.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 510

… ability in entrepreneurial foresight will be assured as much as possible by the market’s process of “selection” in “rewarding” good forecasters and “penalizing” poor ones proportionately.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 546

Since forecasting is the function of entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs will minimize their errors and hence their losses as well. As a result, any existing situation on the free market will tend to be the most desirable for the satisfaction of consumers’ demands …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 645

… the essence of human nature is that it cannot be considered as truly predictable; otherwise we should be dealing, not with free men, but with an ant heap.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1336

FOREIGN AID

One corollary of the libertarian policy of peaceful coexistence and nonintervention between States is the rigorous abstention from any foreign aid, aid from one State to another. For any aid given by State A to State B (1) increases the tax aggression against the people of country A, and (2) aggravates the suppression by State B of its own people.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 195

Stop all foreign aid.

Irrepressible Rothbard, p. 41

… “foreign aid,” essentially a vast racket …

Irrepressible Rothbard, p. 143

… foreign aid is, in good part, a subsidy extracted from American taxpayers and handed over to favored, selected export firms.

Strictly Confidential, p. 206

FOREIGN POLICY

In very few cases have these anti-interventionists favored literal “isolation”: what they have generally favored is political nonintervention in the affairs of other countries, coupled with economic and cultural internationalism in the sense of peaceful freedom of trade, investment, and interchange between the citizens of all countries. And this is the essence of the libertarian position as well.

For a New Liberty, p. 330

In a purely libertarian world, therefore, there would be no “foreign policy” because there would be no States, no governments with a monopoly of coercion over particular territorial areas.

For a New Liberty, p. 331

… libertarians desire to limit, to whittle down, the area of government power in all directions and as much as possible.… the goal is to push back the role of government and to allow the voluntary and spontaneous energies of free persons full scope through peaceful interaction, notably in the free-market economy. In foreign affairs, the goal is the same: to keep government from interfering in the affairs of other governments or other countries. Political “isolationism” and peaceful coexistence—refraining from acting upon other countries—is, then, the libertarian counterpart to agitating for laissez-faire policies at home. The idea is to shackle government from acting abroad just as we try to shackle government at home. Isolationism or peaceful coexistence is the foreign policy counterpart of severely limiting government at home.

For a New Liberty, p. 331

What I am proposing is simply old-fashioned “isolationism” …

Irrepressible Rothbard, p. 172

… just as government throwing money at social and economic problems only makes those problems worse, so the United States government is not able to cure all the ills of mankind.

Irrepressible Rothbard, p. 188

We are strongly opposed to foreign intervention or world government to impose human rights, even libertarian rights, on some foreign country. We believe that each nation should work out its own destiny.

Irrepressible Rothbard, p. 305

Libertarians have, at last, pretty much agreed upon “isolationism”—on the refusal to intervene in foreign wars—as the proper libertarian foreign policy in a world in which nation-States continue to exist.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 413

… interventionism is not only immoral and aggressive; it doesn’t work. We must regain liberty at home, end all interventions in other countries, and return to the historic, forgotten “foreign policy” of serving as an example and a beacon-light of liberty to the rest of the suffering and strife-torn world.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 582

… global intervention and collective security has only brought us endless war, mass murder, and great waste of resources.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 704

Libertarians are opposed to mass murder, and so believe in a peaceful foreign policy, a policy designed to defend America only, and not to meddle in the affairs of every country around the globe.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 885

… governments should be bound by the concept of asylum. Governments should not be able to extradite political dissidents to the tender mercies of another regime.… So long as these territorial monopolies of force exist, they should be held strictly to the boundaries of their own territorial areas. Once let them try to extend their jurisdiction to other areas, and only perpetual wars can ensue … we must try to limit these governments at least to their territorial area, to reduce government intervention to a minimum at home and abroad. Part of such a policy is for governments to take no sides in the internal quarrels of other nations, and to allow asylum once a foreign national and political dissident reaches its shores.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, pp. 901–02

The No. 1 priority for libertarians must always be foreign policy, a policy of peace, of militant opposition to war and foreign intervention.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 925

… the reason for our policy of nonintervention is to avoid the high crime of mass murder … Nonintervention is a principled position deriving from the nature of States and the avoidance of mass murder …

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 955

… the best any nation can do—the best for the cause of liberty and the avoidance of mass murder—is to stay out of the fray. Neutrality, not “collective security,” becomes the crucial libertarian watchword for international relations.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 1020

… while I would prefer unilateral disarmament to the monstrous status quo, these are not our only choices. For I vastly prefer mutual nuclear disarmament to unilateral; clearly the people of the world, their rights and liberties, would be far more secure under the former.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 1119

Given the existence of the State, we must try to abolish, and if not abolish to limit and reduce, its internal power—its internal exercise of taxation, counterfeiting, police state aggression, controls, regulations, or whatever. And similarly, we must try to abolish its external power—its power over the citizens of other States. The criminal State must be reduced as much as we can everywhere—whether it be in its internal or external power. …

Put another way, if we suffer from the very existence of States, we must at least see to it that the State confines itself to power over its own territorial area. At least let it not make things far worse and aggrandize State power everywhere by aggressing against the subjects of other States.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 1179

… our national interest calls for the following policy: a program of world disarmament up to the point where isolationism again becomes militarily practical.

Strictly Confidential, p. 324

A return to old-fashioned isolationism, then, is paradoxically the only really practical foreign policy that we have.

Strictly Confidential, p. 326

FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING

Banks are “inherently bankrupt” because they issue far more warehouse receipts to cash (nowadays in the form of “deposits” redeemable in cash on demand) than they have cash available. Hence, they are always vulnerable to bank runs. These runs are not like any other business failures, because they simply consist of depositors claiming their own rightful property, which the banks do not have. “Inherent bankruptcy,” then, is an essential feature of any “fractional reserve” banking system.

America’s Great Depression, p. 15n11

… the clearest way of preventing inflation is to outlaw fractional-reserve banking, and to impose a 100 percent gold reserve to all notes and deposits.… Fraud is equivalent to theft, for fraud is committed when one part of an exchange contract is deliberately not fulfilled after the other’s property has been taken. Banks that issue receipts to non-existent gold are really committing fraud, because it is then impossible for all property owners (of claims to gold) to claim their rightful property. Therefore, prohibition of such practices would not be an act of government intervention in the free market; it would be part of the general legal defense of property against attack which a free market requires.

America’s Great Depression, p. 27

… “fractional-reserve warehousing” is only a euphemism for fraud and embezzlement.

Case Against the Fed, p. 37

The entire system of fractional-reserve banking, therefore, is built on deceit, a deceit connived at by the legal system.

Case Against the Fed, p. 43

… issuing promises to pay on demand in excess of the amount of goods on hand is simply fraud, and should be so considered by the legal system. For this means that a bank issues “fake” warehouse receipts—warehouse receipts, for example, for ounces of gold that do not actually exist in the vaults. This is legalized counterfeiting; this is the creation of money without the necessity for production, to compete for resources against those who have produced. In short, I believe that fractional-reserve banking is disastrous both for the morality and for the fundamental bases and institutions of the market economy.

Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar, p. 44

… fractional reserve banking creates new money …

Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar, p. 46

… if fractional-reserve banking is fraudulent, then it could be outlawed not as a form of administrative government intervention in the monetary system, but rather as part of the general legal prohibition of force and fraud.

Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar, p. 51

I therefore advocate as the soundest monetary system and the only one fully compatible with the free market and with the absence of force or fraud from any source a 100 percent gold standard. This is the only system compatible with the fullest preservation of the rights of property. It is the only system that assures the end of inflation and, with it, of the business cycle.

Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar, p. 61

… fractional-reserve banks, especially when organized under a central bank, can and do create and then destroy money, distorting and impoverishing the public and the economy in their wake.

Classical Economics, pp. 210–11

… “false” demand liabilities which pretend to but cannot be converted into gold, since they go beyond the value of the gold stock, are in reality equivalent to fraud and theft.

Classical Economics, p. 268

… without fractional reserve banking, there will be no more booms and busts, no more terrible malinvestments, distortions, and shocks of euphoria and distress brought about by business cycles. Investment will be limited to voluntary savings, and therefore there will be no periodic outbreaks of unsound investments that will have to be liquidated by recession.

Economic Controversies, p. 217

… a genuine free market must be based on an absence of fraud or theft, whereas issuing demand liabilities in excess of assets is equivalent to a warehouse issuing fraudulent receipts to non-existing assets, and is therefore a species of fraud or embezzlement. …

… bank notes or deposits are bailments and not debt … therefore an issue of fractional reserve liabilities can only be a violation of the bailment contract.

Economic Controversies, pp. 879–80

… fractional reserve banking—now a system at the behest and direction of the Federal Reserve Banks—is, like fiat paper, legalized counterfeiting, the creation of claims which are invalid and impossible to redeem.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 37

Banks make money by literally creating money out of thin air.… This sort of swindle or counterfeiting is dignified by the term “fractional-reserve banking” …

Making Economic Sense, pp. 279–80

… the entire fractional-reserve system is held together by lies and smoke and mirrors; that is, by an Establishment con.

… The banking system, in short, is a house of cards …

… Banking is not a legitimate industry, providing legitimate service, so long as it continues to be a system of fractional-reserve banking …

Making Economic Sense, p. 324

Fractional reserve banks are philosophically bankrupt because they are engaged in a gigantic con-game: pretending that your deposits are there to be redeemed at any time you wish, while actually lending them out to earn interest.

It is because fractional reserves are a giant con that these banks rely almost totally on public “confidence” …

The entire industry rests on gulling the public, and making them think that their money is safe and that everything is OK; fractional-reserve banking is the only industry in the country that can and will collapse as soon as that “confidence” falls apart. Once the public realizes that the whole industry is a scam, the jig is up, and it goes crashing down; in short, the whole operation is done with mirrors, and falls apart once the public finds out the score.

Making Economic Sense, pp. 329–30

… increases in fiduciary or fiat media are acts of fraudulent intervention in the market, distorting voluntary preferences and the voluntarily determined pattern of income and wealth.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1022

… fractional reserve banking is at one and the same time fraudulent and inflationary …

Mystery of Banking, p. 97

Commercial banks—that is, fractional reserve banks—create money out of thin air. Essentially they do it in the same way as counterfeiters.

Mystery of Banking, p. 98

A bank’s assets are always “longer” than its liabilities, which are instantaneous. Put another way, a bank is always inherently bankrupt, and would actually become so if its depositors all woke up to the fact that the money they believe to be available on demand is actually not there.

Mystery of Banking, p. 99

… fractional reserve bank credit expansion is always shaky, for the more extensive its inflationary creation of new money, the more likely it will be to suffer contraction and subsequent deflation.

Mystery of Banking, p. 103

Bank runs instruct the public in the essential fraudulence of fractional reserve banking, in its essence as a giant Ponzi scheme in which a few people can redeem their deposits only because most depositors do not follow suit.

Mystery of Banking, p. 113

… fractional reserve banking expands money and credit …

Mystery of Banking, p. 114

… “inelasticity” mean[s] the inability of the banking system to inflate money and credit …

Progressive Era, p. 466

If fraud is to be proscribed in a free society, then fractional reserve banking would have to meet the same fate.

What Has Government Done to Our Money?, p. 44

… no fractional-reserve bank can redeem all of its liabilities …

What Has Government Done to Our Money?, p. 65

FRAUD

Surely the proper remedy for any fraud is the general law in defense of property rights.

Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar, p. 34

… “mail fraud” is scarcely violence …

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 1135

… fraud may be considered as theft, because one individual receives the other’s property but does not fulfill his part of the exchange bargain …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 176

Fraud involves cases where one party to an agreed-upon exchange deliberately refuses to fulfill his part of the contract.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 183

Fraud is implicit theft, because fraud entails the physical appropriation of someone else’s property under false pretenses …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1344

FREE BANKING

… free banking would come much closer to the 100 percent ideal than the system we now have.

Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar, p. 51

… if it is true that banks can do no wrong (at least in a convertible currency), that they cannot over-issue notes or over-expand credit, and that even if they did it could have no effect in raising prices or causing a business cycle, then why not adopt free banking?

Classical Economics, p. 245

… under free banking, any refusal whatever to pay in specie on demand must mean instant liquidation for the errant bank. Only then could a free banking system work.

Classical Economics, p. 267

… free-bankers must then be willing to accept the legality of every person and every bank issuing outright forgeries or counterfeits and simply printing paper dollar bills, which would not be illegal if some “reserve” or other in genuine bills were actually maintained.

Economic Controversies, p. 212

… there is less chance for bank-credit expansion in the absence of a central bank to supply reserves and to be a lender of last resort.

Economic Controversies, p. 705

… we call for abolition of the Federal Reserve and a return to some form of free banking …

Economic Controversies, p. 771

Without the State to create the conditions and coercions for continued inflation, attempts at inflation and credit expansion could not succeed on the free market.

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature, p. 216

Free competition can and generally will result in banks voluntarily keeping higher reserve ratios. But a uniform legal requirement will tend to push all the banks down to that minimum ratio.

History of Money and Banking in the United States, p. 143

… under free competition, and without government support and enforcement, there will only be limited scope for fractional-reserve counterfeiting.

Making Economic Sense, p. 281

To save our economy from destruction and from the eventual holocaust of run away inflation, we the people must take the money-supply function back from the government.… money must be returned to the market economy, with all monetary functions performed within the structure of the rights of private property and of the free-market economy. …

Our goal may be summed up simply as the privatization of our monetary system, the separation of government from money and banking.

Making Economic Sense, p. 285

… there is no question that, from the point of view of opponents of inflation and credit expansion, free banking is superior to a central banking system …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1013

… under free banking, banks are totally free, even to engage in fractional reserve banking, but they must redeem their notes or demand deposits on demand, promptly and without cavil, or otherwise be forced to close their doors and liquidate their assets.

Mystery of Banking, p. 111

Free banking, even where fractional reserve banking is legal and not punished as fraud, will scarcely permit fractional reserve inflation to exist, much less to flourish and proliferate. Free banking, far from leading to inflationary chaos, will insure almost as hard and noninflationary a money as 100 percent reserve banking itself.

Mystery of Banking, p. 117

… while a bank cartel is logically possible under free banking, it is in fact highly unlikely to succeed.

Mystery of Banking, p. 123

… free banking would lead to hard money and allow very little bank credit expansion and fractional reserve banking.

Mystery of Banking, p. 124

… a crucial aspect of the free banking model is that the moment a bank cannot pay its notes or deposits in specie, it must declare bankruptcy and close up shop.

Mystery of Banking, p. 197

… there are three great checks on the power of any bank to inflate under a “free-banking” system: (1) the extent of the clientele of each bank; (2) the extent of the clientele of the whole banking system, i.e., the extent to which people use money-substitutes; and (3) the confidence of the clients in their banks.

What Has Government Done to Our Money?, p. 65

FREE MARKET

… we must take the radical step of getting the government out of the economic picture, of separating government completely from the money supply and the economy, and advancing toward a truly free and unhampered market and enterprise economy.

America’s Great Depression, p. xxix

… my own policy goal is the establishment of the free market, of what used to be called laissez-faire …

Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar, p. 20

The “market” is individuals acting.

Economic Controversies, p. 15

… a “free market” necessarily implies total respect for and protection of private property.

Economic Controversies, p. 216

… the free-market economy, as complex as the system appears to be on the surface, is yet nothing more than a vast network of voluntary and mutually agreed upon two-person or two-party exchanges of property titles …

Economic Controversies, p. 359

… the free market is an interconnected web or lattice-work; it is made of innumerable parts which intricately mesh together through a network of producers and entrepreneurs exchanging property titles, motivated by a search for profits and avoidance of losses, and calculating by means of a free price system.

Economic Controversies, p. 434

The free market is a vast latticework of two-person (or two-group) exchanges, an array of mutually beneficial exchanges up and down and across the structure of production.

Economic Controversies, p. 456

… the free market is the method and society “natural” to man …

Economic Controversies, p. 657

… in the free market of voluntary exchanges, the “strong” do no devour or crush the “weak,” contrary to common assumptions about the nature of the free-market economy. On the contrary, it is precisely on the free market where the “weak” reap the advantages of productivity because it benefits the “strong” to exchange with them.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 36

The essence and the glory of the free market is that individual firms and businesses, competing on the market, provide an ever-changing orchestration of efficient and progressive goods and services …

For a New Liberty, p. 242

… I had always believed in the free market …

Left and Right, p. 360

The market works, and works beautifully.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 465

… the market contains a framework for noncoercive ends …

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 715

Free markets, not only the long run but often in the short run, will triumph over government power.

Making Economic Sense, p. 306

The network of voluntary interpersonal exchanges forms a society; it also forms a pattern of interrelations known as the market. A society formed solely by the market has an unhampered market, or a free market, a market not burdened by the interference of violent action.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, pp. 90–91

… the contractual society of the market is a genuinely cooperative society. Each person specializes in the task for which he is best fitted, and each serves his fellow men in order to serve himself in exchange. Each person, by producing for exchange, cooperates with his fellow men voluntarily and without coercion.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, pp. 99–100

… the condition of a free market is that each individual’s rights of person and property be maintained …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 178

… a free market tends to lead to abundance for all of its participants … it is the free market in a free society that furnishes the only instrument to reduce or eliminate poverty and provide abundance.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 340

… a free market will, as far as the knowledge and foresight of entrepreneurs permit, produce so that factors are best allocated to satisfy the wishes of consumers.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 546

… the free market always tends to establish the most efficient and profitable type of production.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 613

In this world, there are two, and only two, ways to settle what the prices of goods will be. One is the way of the free market, where prices are set voluntarily by each of the participating individuals. In this situation, exchanges are made on terms benefiting all the exchangers. The other way is by violent intervention in the market, the way of hegemony as against contract. Such hegemonic establishment of prices means the outlawing of free exchanges and the institution of exploitation of man by man—for exploitation occurs whenever a coerced exchange is made. If the free-market route—the route of mutual benefit—is adopted, then there can be no other criterion of justice than the free-market price … In the free market, consumers and producers adjust their actions in voluntary cooperation.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, pp. 635–36

… only the free market can allocate resources to serve the consumer …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 640

… no man-made actions can improve the satisfaction of consumer demand more than is being done on the unhampered market. …

Economics demonstrates that individuals, entering into mutual relations in a free market in a free society—and only in such relations—can provide abundance for themselves and for the entire society.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 654

The purely free market is, by definition, one where theft and fraud (implicit theft) are illegal and do not exist.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 803

… when the society is free and there is no intervention, everyone will always act in the way that he believes will maximize his utility, i.e., will raise him to the highest possible position on his value scale. In short, everyone’s utility ex ante will be “maximized” (provided we take care not to interpret “utility” in a cardinal manner). Any exchange on the free market, indeed any action in the free society, occurs because it is expected to benefit each party concerned. If we may use the term “society” to depict the pattern, the array, of all individual exchanges, then we may say that the free market maximizes social utility, since everyone gains in utility from his free actions.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 879

… the purely free market is an array of voluntary exchanges between sets of two persons.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 884

… voluntary action—free exchange—leads to the mutual benefit of both parties to the exchange.… the network of these free exchanges in society—known as the “free market”—creates a delicate and even awe-inspiring mechanism of harmony, adjustment, and precision in allocating productive resources, deciding upon prices, and gently but swiftly guiding the economic system toward the greatest possible satisfaction of the desires of all the consumers. In short, not only does the free market directly benefit all parties and leave them free and uncoerced; it also creates a mighty and efficient instrument of social order.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1024

… the workings of the voluntary principle and of the free market lead inexorably to freedom, prosperity, harmony, efficiency, and order …

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1025

… the free market maximizes social utility.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1061

… the free market is a society in which all exchange voluntarily. It may most easily be conceived as a situation in which no one aggresses against person or property. In that case, it is obvious that the utility of all is maximized on the free market.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1067

… the free market contains a smooth, efficient mechanism for bringing anticipated, ex ante utility into the realization of ex post. The free market always maximizes ex ante social utility as well. …

… the free market always benefits every participant, and it maximizes social utility ex ante; it also tends to do so ex post, since it works for the rapid conversion of anticipations into realizations.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1073

… the free-market process benefits all participants on the market and increases social utility … the “distributional” results of the free market—the pattern of income and wealth—also increases social utility and, in fact, maximizes it at any given time.

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

The economic case for the free market is that market allocations tend at all points to be optimal with respect to consumer desires.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1170

On the market people act freely in those ways which they believe will confer net benefits upon them. The result of these actions is the monetary exchange system, with its inexorable tendency toward uniform pricing and the allocation of productive factors to satisfy the most urgent demands of all the consumers.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1236

… the purely free market maximizes social utility, because every participant in the market benefits from his voluntary participation. 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.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1363

The unhampered market is free of self-created economic problems; it furnishes the greatest abundance consistent with man’s command over nature at any given time.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1367

… the free market is (1) what men have turned to when they have been allowed freedom of choice, and (2) what men should turn to if they are to enjoy the full stature of men, if they are to satisfy their wants, and mold nature to their purposes. For it is the market that brings us the standard of living of civilization.

… The principle of the free market is voluntary exchange for mutual benefit. This mutual benefit constitutes gain. The free market is, in fact, that interpersonal relationship which does insure mutual benefit by all relating parties.

Rothbard vs. the Philosophers, p. 131

FREE RIDERS

… the free-rider argument proves far too much. After all, civilization itself is a process of all of us “free-riding” on the achievements of others. We all free-ride, every day, on the achievements of Edison, Beethoven, or Vermeer. When capital investment increases, and technology improves, the real wages of workers and the standard of living of consumers increase, even though they have contributed nothing to these advances. By simply continuing to work and consume, laborers and consumers receive the benefits of the inventions and investments of others without paying for them. So what must we infer from this? Are we all to wear sackcloth and ashes? If our neighbors are wiser, prettier, or happier, we all benefit in countless ways. So what must we do about it? Must we all be taxed to subsidize their beauty and wisdom?

Economic Controversies, pp. 478–79

… there is no way that government can either identify the free riders or the “negative free riders,” or to discover how much benefit each person would derive from the subsidized supply and therefore how much each person should be taxed.

Economic Controversies, p. 480

We are all, therefore, free riders on the past. We are also free riders on the present, because we benefit from the continuing investment of our fellow men and from their specialized skills on the market.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1038

FREE SPEECH

“Inciting to riot,” therefore, is a pure exercise of a man’s right to speak without being thereby implicated in crime.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 81

No man should have the right to force anyone else to speak on any subject. The familiar prohibition against coerced self-incrimination is all very well, but it should be extended to preserving the right not to incriminate anyone else, or indeed to say nothing at all. The freedom to speak is meaningless without the corollary freedom to keep silent.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 83

… a person does not have a “right to freedom of speech”; what he does have is the right to hire a hall and address the people who enter the premises.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 113

Only when the “right to free speech” is treated simply as a subdivision of property right does it become valid, workable, and absolute.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 116

… problems which seemingly require “freedom of speech” to be less than absolute, are actually problems due to the failure to define property rights.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 117

The human right of free speech is simply the property right to hire an assembly hall from the owners, or to own one oneself …

For a New Liberty, p. 52

… “freedom of speech” cannot be upheld as an absolute except as it is subsumed under the general rights of property of the individual (emphatically including property right in his own person). Thus, the man who shouts “fire” in a crowded theater has no right to do so because he is aggressing against the contractual property rights of the theater owner and of the patrons of the performance.

Aside from invasions of property, however, freedom of speech will necessarily be upheld to the uttermost by every libertarian. Freedom to say, print, and sell any utterance becomes an absolute right, in whatever area the speech or expression chooses to cover.

For a New Liberty, p. 115

… “incitement” can only be considered a crime if we deny every man’s freedom of will and choice …

For a New Liberty, p. 116

People should be free to speak, but this does not mean they must be shielded from the consequences of such speech.

Irrepressible Rothbard, p. 30

… all libertarians deplore any physical assault upon the exercise of free speech …

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 196

… no one has the free-speech right to burst into your home and harangue you about politics.

“The right to freedom of speech” really means the right to hire a hall and expound your views; the “right to freedom of press” (where, as we have seen, speech and action clearly cannot be separated) means the right to print a pamphlet and sell it. In short, free speech or free press rights are a subset, albeit an important one, of the rights of private property: the right to hire, to own, to sell.

Making Economic Sense, p. 115

Freedom of speech is supposed to mean the right of everyone to say whatever he likes. But the neglected question is: Where? Where does a man have this right? He certainly does not have it on property on which he is trespassing. In short, he has this right only either on his own property or on the property of someone who has agreed, as a gift or in a rental contract, to allow him on the premises. In fact, then, there is no such thing as a separate “right to free speech”; there is only a man’s property right: the right to do as he wills with his own or to make voluntary agreements with other property owners.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1338

FREE TRADE

… true freedom of trade does require an international commodity money …

Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar, p. 60

… free trade between nations is advantageous to all the participants …

Classical Economics, p. 15

… free trade and free markets, and international peace, go hand in hand …

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, p. 334

It is best for all of us, in all countries of the world, to have each country and territorial area, and each of the individuals and firms within such areas, specialize in the production of what each is relatively most efficient at producing, and then selling those products in exchange for the most efficient products of other firms and countries. In short, it is best for all of us to allow the free market, and the international division of labor, to operate across international boundaries (“freedom of trade”). Furthermore, economics shows us that even if another country places artificial barriers on trade, it is still better for us as consumers to allow free trade; any sort of retaliatory tariffs, quotas, or enforced cartels only cut off our noses to spite our faces.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 534

… genuine free trade requires no negotiations, treaties, super-power creations, or presidential jetting abroad. All it requires is for the United States to cut tariffs and quotas, as well as taxes and regulations. Period. And yes, unilaterally. No other nations or governments need get into the act.

Making Economic Sense, p. 369

… genuine free trade doesn’t require a treaty … If the Establishment truly wants free trade, all it has to do is to repeal our numerous tariffs, import quotas, anti-“dumping” laws, and other American-imposed restrictions on trade. No foreign policy or foreign maneuvering is needed.

Making Economic Sense, p. 371

FREEDOM

… all men must have freedom so that reason, which naturally inclines men to live together in peace, justice, and cooperation, can remain free and unhampered.

Conceived in Liberty v. 1, p. 29; p. 19

… make all markets free and legal.

Economic Controversies, p. 437

Individual human beings are not born or fashioned with fully formed knowledge, values, goals, or personalities; they must each form their own values and goals, develop their personalities, and learn about themselves and the world around them. Every man must have freedom, must have the scope to form, test, and act upon his own choices, for any sort of development of his own personality to take place. He must, in short, be free in order that he may be fully human.… The freer the society, of course, the less has been the interference with individual actions, and the greater the scope for the development of each individual. The freer the society, then, the greater will be the variety and the diversity among men, for the more fully developed will be every man’s uniquely individual personality. On the other hand, the more despotic the society, the more restrictions on the freedom of the individual, the more uniformity there will be among men and the less the diversity, and the less developed will be the unique personality of each and every man. In a profound sense, then, a despotic society prevents its members from being fully human.

Economic Controversies, p. 601

Freedom, then, is needed for the development of the individual, and such development also depends upon the extent of the division of labor and the height of the standard of living. The developed economy makes room for, and encourages, an enormously greater specialization and flowering of the powers of the individual than can a primitive economy, and the greater the degree of such development, the greater the scope for each individual.

Economic Controversies, p. 605

… only the free man can be fully individuated and, therefore, can be fully human.

… freedom and its concomitant, the widening of the division of labor, are vital for the flowering of the individual.

Economic Controversies, p. 606

Why not try freedom?

Economic Controversies, p. 742

The individual man, in introspecting the fact of his own consciousness, also discovers the primordial natural fact of his freedom: his freedom to choose, his freedom to use or not use his reason about any given subject. In short, the natural fact of his “free will.” He also discovers the natural fact of his mind’s command over his body and its actions: that is, of his natural ownership over his self.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 31

… the very fact that the knowledge needed for man’s survival and progress is not innately given to him or determined by external events, the very fact that he must use his mind to learn this knowledge, demonstrates that he is by nature free to employ or not to employ that reason—i.e., that he has free will.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 31

The regime of pure liberty—the libertarian society—may be described as a society where no ownership titles are “distributed,” where, in short, no man’s property in his person or in tangibles is molested, violated, or interfered with by anyone else. But this means that absolute freedom, in the social sense, can be enjoyed.… Absolute freedom, then, need not be lost as the price we must pay for the advent of civilization; men are born free, and need never be in chains. Man may achieve liberty and abundance, freedom and civilization.

Ethics of Liberty, p. 41

What is there left to try but freedom?

Ethics of Liberty, p. 272

Freedom is a condition in which a person’s ownership rights in his own body and his legitimate material property are not invaded, are not aggressed against.… Freedom and unrestricted property right go hand in hand.

For a New Liberty, p. 50

Once the public had tasted the joys, prosperity, freedom, and efficiency of a libertarian, State-less society, it would be almost impossible for a State to fasten itself upon them once again. Once freedom has been fully enjoyed, it is no easy task to force people to give it up.

For a New Liberty, p. 294

… it is impossible to really defend freedom and the free market without insisting on defending the rights of private property.

For a New Liberty, p. 325

… only freedom and a free market can run an industrial economy.… the world will have to adopt freedom and the free market as the requisite for industry to survive and flourish.

For a New Liberty, p. 395

… freedom of action is precisely one of the doctrines championed by the individualist believers in the free market and the free society.

Left and Right, p. 501

… freedom is indivisible … the willingness to sanction the loss of freedom in one area means that other areas inevitably are abandoned.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 130

Human progress and freedom go hand in hand.

Making Economic Sense, p. 201

… freedom, and the growth of industry and standards of living for all, must go hand in hand.

Making Economic Sense, p. 414

… you can’t have economic freedom and private property without intellectual and political freedom …

Making Economic Sense, p. 415

… political and economic freedom are inseparable.

Making Economic Sense, p. 418

Freedom from violence implies that no one may seize the property of another by means of violence or the threat of violence and that each person’s property is safe, or “secure,” from such aggression.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 92

“Sovereignty” is the quality of ultimate political power; it is the power resting on the use of violence. In a purely free society, each individual is sovereign over his own person and property, and it is therefore this self-sovereignty which obtains on the free market. No one is “sovereign” over anyone else’s actions or exchanges.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 630

… the free market does not mean freedom to commit fraud or any other form of theft. Quite the contrary.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 811

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.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 958

… “freedom” refers to absence of molestation by other persons; it is purely an interpersonal problem.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1319

I consider one of the glories of economic freedom and individualism (not rugged, but humane) the ever-growing standard of living, the magnificent increase in opportunities for leisure, and the development of life-giving modern medicine.

Rothbard vs. the Philosophers, p. 55

… monetary freedom creates no difficulties.

What Has Government Done to Our Money?, p. 43

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

… a person … does not have a “right to freedom of the press”; what he does have is the right to write or publish a pamphlet, and to sell that pamphlet to those who are willing to buy it (or to give it away to those who are willing to accept it).

Ethics of Liberty, pp. 113–14

The human right of a free press depends upon the human right of private property in newsprint.

… the human right of a free press is the property right to buy materials and then print leaflets or books and to sell them to those who are willing to buy.

For a New Liberty, p. 52

An abstract constitution guaranteeing “freedom of press” is meaningless in a socialist society.

For a New Liberty, p. 121

Whether or not watching violence on television helps lead to actual crimes should not come under the purview of the State. To outlaw violent films because they might someday induce someone to commit a crime is a denial of man’s free will, and a total denial, of course, of the right of those who will not commit crimes to see the film. But more important, it is no more justifiable—in fact, less so—to outlaw violent films for this reason than it would be, as we have noted, to lock up all teenage Negro males because they have a greater tendency to commit crime than the rest of the population.

For a New Liberty, p. 128

… the “human right” of a free press would be only a mockery in a socialist country, where the State owns and decides upon the allocation of newsprint and other newspaper capital.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1337

FRIEDMAN, MILTON

The leading extreme positivist in economics, Milton Friedman, goes so far as to extol the use of admittedly false premises in the theory, since, according to Friedman, the only test of a theory is whether it predicts successfully.

Economic Controversies, p. 45n13

What Milton Friedman did was to import into economics the doctrine that had dominated philosophy for over a decade, namely logical positivism.

Economic Controversies, p. 132

He who lives by prediction is destined to die by prediction.

Economic Controversies, p. 133

… Milton Friedman has lately defended bimetallism …

Economic Controversies, p. 206n64

Milton Friedman and the economists of the “Chicago School” advocate, indeed, a totally fiat paper money, manufactured by government and cut loose entirely from any vestigial connection with gold and silver.

Economic Controversies, p. 711

… in pursuit of his lifelong hatred of gold, Milton Friedman seems willing to embrace virtually any alternative, including bimetallism …

Economic Controversies, p. 883

Milton Friedman is the Establishment’s Court Libertarian, and it is high time that libertarians awaken to this fact of life.

Economic Controversies, p. 895

… only appears to be a free-marketeer because the remainder of the profession has shifted radically leftward and stateward in the meanwhile.

Economic Controversies, p. 896

In common with their Keynesian colleagues, the Friedmanites wish to give to the central government absolute control over … macro areas, in order to manipulate the economy for social ends, while maintaining that the micro world can still remain free. In order to manipulate the economy for social ends, while maintaining that the micro world can still remain free. In short, Friedmanites as well as Keynesians concede the vital macro sphere to statism as the supposedly necessary framework for the micro-freedom of the free market.

Economic Controversies, p. 898

One of Friedman’s most disastrous deeds was the important role he proudly played, during World War II in the Treasury Department, in foisting upon the suffering American public the system of the withholding tax.

Economic Controversies, p. 899

The single most disastrous influence of Milton Friedman has been a legacy from his old Chicagoite egalitarianism: the proposal for a guaranteed annual income to everyone through the income tax system …

In this catastrophic scheme, Milton Friedman has once again been guided by his overwhelming desire not to remove the State from our lives, but to make the State more efficient. He looks around at the patchwork mess of local and state welfare systems, and concludes that all would be more efficient if the whole plan were placed under the federal income tax rubric and everyone were guaranteed a certain income floor. More efficient, perhaps, but also far more disastrous …

Economic Controversies, pp. 899–90

… the key problem with Friedman’s Fisherine approach is the same orthodox separation of the micro and macro spheres …

Economic Controversies, p. 904

… Friedman attributes the 1929 depression not to the preceding inflation boom but to the failure of the post-Strong Federal Reserve to inflate the money supply enough before and during the depression.

… while Milton Friedman has performed a service in bringing back to the notice of the economics profession the overriding influence of money and the money supply on business cycles, we must recognize that this “purely monetarist” approach is almost the exact reverse of the sound—as well as truly free-market—Austrian view. For while the Austrians hold that Strong’s monetary expansion made a later 1929 crash inevitable, Fisher-Friedman believe that all the Fed needed to do was to pump more money in to offset any recession. Believing that there is no causal influence running from boom to bust …

Economic Controversies, p. 906

… Milton Friedman is, purely and simply, a statist-inflationist, albeit a more moderate inflationist than most of the Keynesians. But that is small consolation indeed, and hardly qualifies Friedman as a free-market economist in this vital area.

Economic Controversies, p. 907

… Milton Friedman is a radical advocate of cutting all current ties, however weak, with gold, and going onto a total and absolute fiat dollar standard, with all control vested in the Federal Reserve System. Of course, Friedman would then advise the Fed to use that absolute power wisely, but no libertarian worth the name can have anything but contempt for the very idea of vesting coercive power in any group and then hoping that such group will not use its power to the utmost. The reasons that Friedman is totally blind to the tyrannical and despotic implications of his fiat money scheme is, once again, the arbitrary Chicagoite separation between the micro and the macro, the vain, chimerical hope that we can have totalitarian control of the macro sphere while the “free market” is preserved in the micro. It should be clear by now that this kind of a truncated, Chicagoite micro-“free market” is “free” only in the most mocking and ironic sense: it is far more the Orwellian “freedom” of “Freedom is Slavery.”

Economic Controversies, p. 908

The philosophical absurdity of the Friedmanite plan of each government providing its own fiat money, cut loose from all others, can be seen clearly if we consider what would happen if every region, every province, every state, nay every borough, county, town, village, block, house, or individual would issue its own money, and we then had, as Friedman envisions, freely fluctuating exchange rates between all these millions of currencies. The ensuing chaos would stem from the destruction of the very concept of money—the entity that serves as a general medium for all exchanges on the market. Philosophically, Friedmanism would destroy money itself, and reduce us to the chaos and primitivism of the barter system.

Economic Controversies, p. 909

One of Friedman’s crucial errors in his plan of turning all monetary power over to the State is that he fails to understand that this scheme would be inherently inflationary. For the State would then have in its complete power the issuance of as great a supply of money as it desired.

Economic Controversies, p. 909

… Friedman’s pernicious influence has been in trying to make an inefficient State operation far more efficient …

Economic Controversies, p. 910

… Friedman maintains that it is legitimate for the government to interfere with the free market whenever anyone’s actions have “neighborhood effect.” …

… In reality, this argument could be used to justify almost any intervention, and subsidy and tax scheme.

Economic Controversies, p. 910

… it is difficult to consider him a free-market economist at all.

Economic Controversies, p. 911

It is high time to identify Milton Friedman for what he really is. It is high time to call a spade a spade, and a statist a statist.

Economic Controversies, p. 912

Professor Milton Friedman … holds to freedom as against State intervention as a general tendency, but in practice allows a myriad of damaging exceptions, exceptions which serve to vitiate the principle almost completely, notably in the fields of police and military affairs, education, taxation, welfare, “neighborhood effects,” antitrust laws, and money and banking.

For a New Liberty, pp. 31–32

Yes, under cover of the free enterprise rhetoric, Uncle Miltie is a crank. Invariably, when the State has really been fouling things up, when its own created messes have brought insuperable problems that have threatened to bring much of the State system tumbling down, Milton Friedman has ridden to the State’s rescue with some crank scheme that has managed to befuddle the issue and to save the State’s bacon, at least for a good while. With friends and champions like that, the free market economy hardly needs any enemies.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 470

Milton has always been at his weakest in the area of money—and has typically spent most of his time and energy in this particular field. In the first place, he has always been soft on inflation, taking the position that: who cares about inflation so long as there are no price or wage controls to distort the allocation of resources? He has long sneered at gold as money, and has advocated the total control of the money supply by the central government, in the form of fiat paper.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 470

… Friedmanism is being used as a free-market cloak for state despotism. Such is the tragedy that must result when “free-market” economists attempt to influence the State from above, and to become efficiency experts for despotism.

Libertarian Forum v. 1, p. 582

… Friedmanism descends to being an efficiency expert for statism.

Libertarian Forum v. 2, p. 772

FUTURE

… Man knows a lot; but he does not know everything and he must try to estimate the future …

Economic Controversies, p. 174

All action aims at rendering conditions at some time in the future more satisfactory for the actor than they would have been without the intervention of the action.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 4