To be sure, I am not speaking about Christian equality, whose real name is equity; but about this democratic and social equality, which is nothing but the canonization of envy and the chimera of jealous ineptitude. This equality was never anything but a mask which could not become reality without the abolition of all merit and virtue.
— Charles Forbes René de MontalembertEmergencies” have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.
— Friedrich A. HayekThere can be no socialism without a state, and as long as there is a state there is socialism. The state, then, is the very institution that puts socialism into action; and as socialism rests on aggressive violence directed against innocent victims, aggressive violence is the nature of any state.
— Hans-Hermann HoppeA day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas.
— Victor HugoSocialism, or communism as it is sometimes called, is merely a secular religion, where the State becomes a god.
— Stefan MolyneuxIt's WW2 and there are wage controls in place. Instead of health care, companies decide to offer employees shoes. Having absorbed those costs, they later lobby for every company to be required to offer shoes. That calls forth regulation and monopolization of the shoe industry. Shoes are heavily subsidized. Every shoe must be approved. Producers must be domestic. They must adhere to a certain quality. They can't discriminate based on foot size or individual need. Prices rise, and some people lack shoes, so the Affordable Shoe Act forces everyone to buy into an official shoe plan or pay a fee. Here we have a perfect plan for making shoes egregiously expensive. The entire country would be consumed with the fear of being shoeless if they lose their job. The left wing calls for a single shoe provider to offer universal shoes and the right wing meekly suggests that shoe makers be permitted to sell across state lines.Meanwhile, libertarians suggest that we just forget the whole thing and let the market make and deliver shoes of every quality to anyone from anyone. Everyone screams that this is an insane and dangerous idea.
— Jeffrey TuckerIt is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
— Murray N. RothbardAntiliberals endlessly berate their enemies for 'instrumental thinking.' But they do not clearly explain the evil of producing better goods at a lower cost.
— Stephen HolmesGovernment as we now know it in the USA and other economically advanced countries is so manifestly horrifying, so corrupt, counterproductive, and outright vicious, that one might well wonder how it continues to enjoy so much popular legitimacy and to be perceived so widely as not only tolerable but indispensable. The answer, in overwhelming part, may be reduced to a two-part formula: bribes and bamboozlement (classically 'bread and circuses'). Under the former rubric falls the vast array of government 'benefits' and goodies of all sorts, from corporate subsidies and privileges to professional grants and contracts to welfare payments and health care for low-income people and other members of the lumpenproletariat. Under the latter rubric fall such measures as the government schools, the government's lapdog news media, and the government's collaboration with the producers of professional sporting events and Hollywood films. Seen as a semi-integrated whole, these measures give current governments a strong hold on the public's allegiance and instill in the masses and the elites alike a deep fear of anything that seriously threatens the status quo.
— Robert HiggsEvery step which leads from capitalism toward planning is necessarily a step nearer to absolutism and dictatorship.
— Ludwig von Mises