Voluntaryism Quotes

I wonder how many such men in America would know that Communism, the New Deal, Fascism, Nazism, are merely so-many trade-names for collectivist Statism, like the trade-names for tooth-pastes which are all exactly alike except for the flavouring. ~ Albert Jay Nock

The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax. ~ Eric Hoffer

Equality cannot be imagined outside of tyranny. ~ Charles Forbes Rene De Montalembert

Rights are something made up by governments to make you feel like you're buying something with your taxes. ~ Stefan Molyneux

No people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

A person who says "every person has a right to a decent education" may not actually mean "people should be robbed to support bad schools" or "all children should be forced into a prison-like building for 12 years. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

If you personally advocate that I be caged if I don't pay for whatever "government" things YOU want, please don't pretend to be tolerant, or non-violent, or enlightened, or compassionate. Don't pretend you believe in "live and let live," and don't pretend you want peace, freedom or harmony. It's a simple truism that the only people in the world who are willing to "live and let live" are voluntaryists. So you can either PRETEND to care about and respect your fellow man while continuing to advocate widespread authoritarian violence, or you can embrace the concepts of self-ownership and peaceful coexistence, and become an anarchist. ~ Larken Rose

Anarcho-capitalism is to "minimal statism" what a cure is to a painkiller. ~ Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Man has rights because they are natural rights. They are grounded in the nature of man: the individual's capacity for conscious choice, the necessity for him to use his mind and energy to adopt goals and values, to find out about the world, to pursue his ends in order to survive and prosper, his capacity and need to communicate and interact with other human beings and to participate in the division of labor. ~ Murray N. Rothbard

Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly "reforming" their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact they're always busy "reforming" is an implicit admission that they didn't get it right the first 50 times. ~ Lawrence W. Reed

Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). ~ Robert Nozick

Nationalism is pimped-out bigotry, designed to provoke a Stockholm Syndrome in the livestock. ~ Stefan Molyneux

He who is unfit to serve his fellow citizens wants to rule them. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society. ~ Murray N. Rothbard

Trade and money, which go together in a stream of energy, inevitably wash away the enclosing walls of a society of status. ~ Isabel Paterson

For anyone who thinks "profit" is evil, I have a challenge for you: try NOT to get any profit in the next week. Profit simply means increasing how much valuable stuff you have, and if you don't profit, you die. Literally. For example, don't buy any food for a week, because when you buy food (or anything), it's because you value the food MORE than you value the money you trade for it. If you didn't, you wouldn't make the trade. So you PROFIT (and so does the seller) every time you buy something. And every time you sell something, or work for money, etc. So before condemning "profit" (or "greed" or "selfishness," for that matter), see if you can survive without it. Then stop repeating vague collectivist BS, and learn to distinguish between "win/win" events (voluntary exchange) where BOTH sides profit, and "win/lose" events, where one side benefits by harming the other side. By the way, "government" is ALWAYS the latter. ~ - Larken Rose

Voluntary communism, together with laissez-faire capitalism, has nothing to be ashamed of on moral and economic grounds. They can each hold up their heads, high. Far from enemies, they are merely opposite sides of the same voluntaristic coin. Together, they must battle state coercion, whether called State Capitalism or State Socialism. The point is, "left" vs. "right" is a red herring. The reddest and perhaps most misleading red herring in all political-economic theory. ~ Walter Block

No man can rightfully be required to join, or support, an association whose protection he does not desire. ~ Lysander Spooner

Here's something I still can't get over. Amazes and thrills me every time. I'm sitting here and want a certain book. So I search, click, and then I have the book. Every time, my heart does a little leap of joy. What a beautiful world the market is making. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. ~ H.L. Mencken

The proposal to quit voting is basically revolutionary; it amounts to a shifting of power from one group to another, which is the essence of revolution. As soon as the nonvoting movement got up steam, the politicians would most assuredly start a counterrevolution. Measures to enforce voting would be instituted; fines would be imposed for violations, and prison sentences would be meted out to repeaters. ~ Frank Chodorov

On the opening day of law school at Yale, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce. Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you. ~ Stephen L. Carter

Free markets are the real people's revolution. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

When I argue with devout statists, sometimes other voluntaryists tell me that I'm wasting my time, opining that a particular statist is never going to "get it." I often respond by saying that that's rarely my intention. Most of the time, when I argue with statists, the goal is for ME to learn more about the mentality and psychology of authoritarian indoctrination, and to hopefully help any SPECTATORS--whether statist or anarchist--learn something from the exchange. (Both of those goals can be achieved even if the statist continues to be a lunk-headed dupe.) Earlier today, a funny but possibly profound analogy came to mind about this:

When I argue with "true believer" devout statists, I'm not being a doctor trying to heal an ailing patient; I'm being a coroner, doing an AUTOPSY on a patient who is already beyond any hope of saving, in the hopes that I, and anyone observing, may learn more about the "disease" of statism, in order to better understand the nature of it, and possibly prevent others from experiencing a similar fate. ~ Larken Rose

The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. ~ Frederic Bastiat

Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid. ~ Penn Jillette

Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State's inhabitants, or subjects. ~ Murray N. Rothbard

History is the same story with different costumes. ~ Stefan Molyneux

We have won the time lottery of the last 4 billion years. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The earliest use of writing was strictly commercial and economic, not political or bureaucratic. It was trade, entrepreneurship, and stewardship of private property, not politics, "public education" or the creation of national mythology that allowed humankind to transition from prehistory to history. Just as trade, entrepreneurship, and stewardship of private property have always been on the forefront of civilization's advancement, so were they also the driving force behind civilization's emergence. ~ Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Justice requires that you should not place the burdens of one man on the shoulders of another man, even though he is better able to bear them. In plainer words, that you should not make one set of men pay for what is used by another set of men. ~ Auberon Herbert

Improving the world can be a nasty and ugly and difficult and dangerous business ... because when you improve the world, you threaten the entrenched interests of evil people. ~ Stefan Molyneux

I'm not scared of the Maos and the Stalins and the Hitlers.
I'm scared of the thousands of millions of people that hallucinate them to be "authority", and so do their bidding, and pay for their empires, and carry out their orders.
I don't care if there's one looney with a stupid moustache. He's not a threat if the people do not believe in "authority". ~ Larken Rose

No state, no government exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men. ~ Rose Wilder Lane

The man who is not permitted to own is owned. ~ George Santayana

The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy. ~ Thomas Sowell

An anarcho-capitalist is someone who agrees that the best way to eliminate the tragedy of the commons is to privatize it away, and realizes that state politics is the mother of all such tragedies. ~ Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life ... The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber ... Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. ~ Lysander Spooner

The profit of the one is the profit of the other. ~ Frederic Bastiat

Freedom is the foundation for all wonderful things in life. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

An atheist who is a statist is just another theist. ~ Stefan Molyneux

In proportion as you give the state power to do things for you, you give it power to do things to you. ~ Albert Jay Nock

Ever wonder why the media never refers to 18 or 19 year old American soldiers as "armed teens"? ~ Stefan Molyneux

Vengeance against predators is meals on wheels. ~ Stefan Molyneux

People who can't imagine order without imposition always end up favoring power over liberty. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

The government is a giant logjam in the eternal river of human potential. ~ Stefan Molyneux

There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure. ~ Isabel Paterson

Government should never be able to do anything you can't do. If you can't steal from your neighbor, you can't send the government to steal for you. ~ Ron Paul

Liberty is not about class war, income war, race war, national war, a war between the sexes, or any other conflict apart from the core conflict between individuals and those who would seek power and control over the human spirit. Liberty is the dream that we can all work together, in ways of our choosing and of our own human volition, to realize a better life. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Anarcho-capitalism: the realization that the only way to effectively govern the market is to have an effective market in governance. ~ Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Statism ends with an eye roll. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The goal of parenting is to create self-sufficient virtues in children. Applying external pressure and punishments tends to teach them fear-based compliance rather than the internalization of moral standards. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Distraction serves evil more than any other mental state. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The ones who are insane enough to think that they can rule the world are always the ones who do. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Government is a gang, but not merely as meritorious as a private gang because it claims legal legitimacy. It pillages and uses violence but under the cover of law, and seeks legitimacy not through competition but through the myth of the social contract. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Schooling that children are forced to endure - in which the subject matter is imposed by others and the "learning" is motivated by extrinsic rewards and punishments rather than by the children's true interests - turns learning from a joyful activity into a chore, to be avoided whenever possible. Coercive schooling, which tragically is the norm in our society, suppresses curiosity and overrides children's natural ways of learning. It also promotes anxiety, depression and feelings of helplessness that all too often reach pathological levels. ~ Peter Gray

So what? Why should an a priori proof of the libertarian property theory make any difference? Why not engage in aggression anyway?" Why indeed?! But then, why should the proof that 1+1=2 make any difference? One certainly can still act on the belief that 1+1=3. The obvious answer is "because a propositional justification exists for doing one thing, but not for doing another." But why should we be reasonable, is the next come-back. Again, the answer is obvious. For one, because it would be impossible to argue against it; and further, because the proponent raising this question would already affirm the use of reason in his act of questioning it. This still might not suffice and everyone knows that it would not, for even if the libertarian ethic and argumentative reasoning must be regarded as ultimately justified, this still does not preclude that people will act on the basis of unjustified beliefs either because they don't know, they don't care, or they prefer not to know. I fail to see why this should be surprising or make the proof somehow defective. ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe

The demoralization that the debase­ment of the currency left in its wake played a major role in bring­ing Adolf Hitler into power in 1933. ~ Henry Hazlitt

To live in a state of liberty is not to live apart from law. It is, on the contrary, to live under the highest law, the only law that can really profit a man, the law which is consciously and deliberately imposed by himself on himself. ~ Auberon Herbert

Having a Constitutional political party is a little like telling a car-jacker, "You're not allowed to do what you're doing! And if you don't stop it right now, we are going to ask you to order yourself to be nice! And if that doesn't work, we are going to try to elect a new car-jacker, who we hope will tell himself not to steal our cars! ... But at least we're not like those silly utopian anarchist kooks out there who refuse to work within the system for change! Those crazy people say there should be NO car-jackers at all! ~ Larken Rose

What is a price? It is a proposed point of agreement between a buyer and seller. The proposal is the key. It is not a marching order. Past prices represent deals done in history. Current prices represent possible deals in the future. Prices embed vast information about perceived realities: resource availability, consumer demand, cultural biases and habits, speculations about the future. The price is also an amazing tool. It provides an objective basis for accounting and the assessment of profit and loss. Without prices, real prices rooted in real market experience, we'd been lost. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

The law is guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish. ~ Frederic Bastiat

A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment ... is not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule. ~ Ayn Rand

It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Yes I pay taxes ... There are no ethics in the face of coercion, that is blaming the victim. Focus on the man with the gun, not the man in the crosshairs trying to survive. ~ Stefan Molyneux

You look back in time to when there was slavery and you think 'how did people even remotely believe that this was a good idea?'.
It's incomprehensible for us to think of what the mindset was 100 or 200 years ago. I hope to make the present as incomprehensible to the future as the past is to us. ~ Stefan Molyneux

To make a contented slave, you must make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate his power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery. The man that takes his earnings, must be able to convince him that he has a perfect right to do so. It must not depend upon mere force; the slave must know no Higher Law than his master's will. The whole relationship must not only demonstrate, to his mind, its necessity, but its absolute rightfulness. ~ Frederick Douglass

Good philosophy is always hate speech to evil doers. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this
that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot. ~ Lysander Spooner

When poverty declines, the need for government declines, which is why expecting government to solve poverty is like expecting a tobacco company to mount an aggressive anti-smoking campaign. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The surest way to damage society is to call for a "great man" to lead it. The surest way to improve society is to become a great man to lead oneself and convince others to do likewise. ~ Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

When men reject reason, they have no means left for dealing with one another - except brute, physical force. ~ Ayn Rand

All laws which can be violated without doing any one any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of men that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men's thoughts the more toward those very objects, for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden ... He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it. ~ Baruch Spinoza

People are more willing to support the exercise of authority over themselves when they believe it to be an objective, neutral feature of the natural world. This was the idea behind the concept of the divine right of kings. By making the king appear to be an integral part of God's plan for the world rather than an ordinary human being dominating his fellows by brute force, the public could be more easily persuaded to bow to his authority. However, when the doctrine of divine right became discredited, a replacement was needed to ensure that the public did not view political authority as merely the exercise of naked power. That replacement is the concept of the rule of law. ~ John Hasnas

Government" itself does no harm, because it is a fictional entity. But the belief in "government" – the notion that some people actually have the moral right to rule over others – has caused immeasurable pain and suffering, injustice and oppression, enslavement and death. ~ - Larken Rose

The military state is the final form to which every planned economy tends rapidly. ~ Isabel Paterson

If any of the socialist chiefs had tried to earn his living by selling hot dogs, he would have learned something about the sovereignty of the consumers. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Our politicians tell us we are free, even though most governments take over 50% of what we earn. They claim we get services that we need for our hard-earned money, even though we could buy the same services at half the price from the private sector. Today, we ridicule the slave-owners' claim that they "gave back" to their slaves by housing, clothing, feeding them, and bestowing upon them the "benefits" of civilization instead of leaving them in their native state. We see this as a self-serving justification for exploitation. In the future, we will view being forcibly taxed to pay for things we don't want, such as bombs for the Middle East, subsidies for tobacco, other people's abortions, regulations that put small businesses out of business, prisons for people trying to feel good, keeping life-saving medications out of the hands of dying people, etc., as taking away our freedom. When even a small portion of our lives is spent enslaved, that part tends to dominate the rest of our time. If we don't put our servitude first as we structure the remainder of our lives, our masters will make sure we regret it. How much freedom do we need to survive and how much do we need to thrive? ~ Mary J. Ruwart

Ultimately, we need to take control over the money supply out of the hands of our governments and make the production of money again subject to the principle of free association. The first step to endorsing and promoting this strategy is to realize that governments do not - indeed cannot - fulfill any positive role whatever through the control of our money. ~ Jorg Guido Hulsmann

Income inequality has no necessary connection with poverty, the lack of material resources for a decent life, such as adequate food, shelter, and clothing. A society with great income inequality may have no poor people, and a society with no income inequality may have nothing but poor people. ~ Robert Higgs

The more laws and restrictions there are,
The poorer people become.
...
The more rules and regulations,
The more thieves and robbers. ~ Lao-Tzu

The entire Nazi war machine was only possible because of past, present and future violations of the non aggression principle (achievable only through government). ~ Stefan Molyneux

I found most of my friends quite content to be used as tax-material, even though the sums of money taken from them were employed against their own beliefs and interests. They had lived so long under the system of using others, and then in their turn being used by them, that they were like hypnotized subjects, and looked on this subjecting and using of each other as a part of the necessary and even Providential order of things. The great machine had taken possession of their souls. ~ Auberon Herbert

Nearly all libertarians were once conservatives or progressives or independent statists of some stripe. But scarcely any conservatives, progressives, or independent statists were once libertarians. This asymmetry in the direction of ideological migration is interesting and perhaps informative. ~ Robert Higgs

There are two principles between which there can be no compromise - liberty and coercion. ~ Frederic Bastiat

Promote the voluntary family; voluntarism is the only known cure for abuses of power - in politics, the economy or the family. ~ Stefan Molyneux

You cannot have an agency that defends your property, which also has the right to violate your property rights at will. That's like hiring a bodyguard that you pay to beat you up randomly. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The free market is not a system. It is not a policy dictated by anyone in particular. It is not something that Washington implements. It does not exist in any legislation, law, bill, regulation, or book. It is what you get when people act on their own, entirely without central direction, and with their own property, and within human associations of their own creation and in their own interest. It is the beauty that emerges in absence of control. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

There's a huge swath of humanity that has developed verbal abilities to extract resources from guilt-ridden people.
They used to be priests, and now they're leftists. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The disdain of profit is due to ignorance, and to an attitude that we may if we wish admire in the ascetic who has chosen to be content with a small share of the riches of this world, but which, when actualised in the form of restrictions on profits of others, is selfish to the extent that it imposes asceticism, and indeed deprivations of all sorts, on others. ~ Friedrich Hayek