Lacking the direct test of success or failure, the voter tends to turn, not to those politicians whose measures have the best chance of success, but to those with the ability to ‘sell’ their propaganda. Without grasping logical chains of deduction, the average voter will never be able to discover the error that the ruler makes. Murray Rothbard Read Quote
The politician and the government expert receive their revenues, not from service voluntarily purchased on the market, but from a compulsory levy on the populace. These officials, therefore, wholly lack the pecuniary incentive to care about serving the public properly and competently. Murray Rothbard Read Quote
In the market, the fittest are those most able to serve the consumers; in government, the fittest are those most adept at wielding coercion and/or those most adroit at making demagogic appeals to the voting public. Murray Rothbard Read Quote
Praxeology – economics – provides no ultimate ethical judgments: it simply furnishes the indispensable data necessary to make such judgments. Murray Rothbard Read Quote
Among intellectuals who consider themselves ‘scientific,’ the phrase ‘the nature of man’ is apt to have the effect of a red flag on a bull. Murray Rothbard Read Quote
In order to institute action, it is not sufficient that the individual man have unachieved ends that he would like to fulfill. He must also expect that certain modes of behavior will enable him to attain his ends. A man may have a desire for sunshine, but if he realizes that he can do nothing to achieve it, he does not act on this desire. Murray Rothbard Read Quote
All action is an attempt to exchange a less satisfactory state of affairs for a more satisfactory one. Murray Rothbard Read Quote
Play, as a consumers’ good, is subject to the law of marginal utility, as are all goods, and the time spent in play will be balanced against the utility to be derived from other obtainable goods. Murray Rothbard Read Quote
On the market, all is harmony. But as soon as intervention appears and is established, conflict is created, for each may participate in a scramble to be a net gainer rather than a net loser – to be part of the invading team instead of one of the victims. Murray Rothbard Read Quote
The picture of the free market is necessarily one of harmony and mutual benefit; the picture of State intervention is one of caste conflict, coercion, and exploitation. Murray Rothbard Read Quote
