Quotes from Robert Higgs

Since the end of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, presidents have misled the public about their motives and their intentions in going to war.

Without popular fear, no government would endure more than twenty-four hours.

If I had to use a single word to describe what is fundamentally wrong with government today, I would use the word fraud.

By adopting programs to distribute substantial amounts of income, a nation guarantees that its government will become more powerful and invasive in other ways.

True counselors of despair are those who hope against hope—and historical experience—that the government can and will act constructively.

Some doomsayers think the collapse will be triggered by runaway government spending, excessive taxation, oppressive regulation, food shortages, fuel shortages or natural disasters such as deadly pandemics or lethal changes in the world's climate.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am -- not stuck in the middle, but hovering above the entire farcical spectrum, weeping as I behold my fellow man's devotion to political illusion and self-destruction.

A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration.

We know how the people of Argentina ruined their country. We know how the people of Venezuela ruined their country. Few Americans know much about the history of Argentina or Venezuela. But if they wish to know how the people of the USA are ruining their own country, all they have to do is look around themselves, including, in most cases, looking in the mirror.

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.

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.

The government enforces a monopoly over the production and distribution of its alleged 'services' and brings violence to bear against would-be competitors. In so doing, it reveals the fraud at the heart of its impudent claims and gives sufficient proof that it is not a genuine protector, but a mere protection racket.

It is a sound interpretive rule...that anything that cannot be accomplished except with the aid of threats or the actual exercise of violence against unoffending persons cannot be beneficial to one and all.

People and their values are almost infinitely diverse, and people will never agree on many elements of social arrangements that might be subjected to uniform rules of governance. Hence, the greater the scope of strictly individual self-determination, the lesser the scope of governance, and the greater the tolerance with which people live and let live among their fellows, the more peaceful and flourishing society will be

Like all who inherit the Lockean tradition, Mises believed that a strong but limited government, far from suffocating its citizens, allows them to be productive and free.

Ironically, in the full-fledged transfer society, where governments busy themselves redistributing income by means of hundreds of distinct programs, hardly anyone is better off as a result.

Many anti-energy groups display little appreciation of the extent to which modern economies depend pervasively on the use of fossil fuels and petrochemical products.

We need to have a modicum of faith in people's common sense, creativity and will to survive and prosper even in the face of great difficulties and obstacles. If people could keep society running in the aftermath of the Black Death, they could keep it running after the U.S. government defaulted on its debt.

Austria, Germany and the U.S. South did not disappear as a result of their currencies' ruin. Although many people suffered, most people found a way to survive, life went on, and economic activity eventually resumed after the adoption of a 'reformed' or foreign medium of exchange.

...History shows that ... (people) can be deflected from their natural tendencies by artful propaganda, bogus crises, or other political trickery.

When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie.

The beginning of political wisdom is the realization that despite everything you've always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed, it is out to get you.

If you have a private firm and you spend a ton of money to pay employees, but what you produce is a flop, there will be no value to GDP. But government spending all gets counted as contributing to economic growth. That's why in the early days of creating these measurements, some people didn't want to count government spending.

Intervene globally, lose freedom locally.