World History

Democracy may be a self-limiting disease, as civilization itself seems to be. There are thumping paradoxes in its philosophy, and some of them have a suicidal smack.

"The Aquinas–John of Paris–Locke view is the 'labor theory' (defining 'labor' as the expenditure of human energy rather than working for a wage) of the origin of property, not a labor theory of value."

To the individualist Lao Tzu, government, with its “laws and regulations more numerous than the hairs of an ox,” was a vicious oppresso

If an omnipotent authority has the power to assign to every individual the tasks he has to perform, nothing that can be called freedom and autonomy is left to him. He has only the choice between strict obedience and death by starvation.

Ch'ien was one of the world's first monetary theorists. He pointed out that increased quantity and a debased quality of coinage by government depreciates the value of money and makes prices rise. And he saw too that government inherently tended to engage in this sort of inflation and debasement.

"To all collectivists, including Dickens, the idea that more wealth could be created never manages to invade their imaginations."

The greatest economic charity is that which enables persons to become independent of alms and therefore most self-reliant and secure under freedom.

The scholars, writers, and philosophers of a society have to be good or there is really little hope.

Every government intervention creates new problems in the course of vain attempts to solve the old.

We need to convey the truth that the market for education works and would deliver far better results at less cost if it were allowed to function.