Leonard Read Quotes

[S]tatism is but socialized dishonesty; it is feathering the nests of some with feathers coercively plucked from others - on the grand scale. There is no moral difference between the act of a pickpocket and the progressive income tax or any other social program.

Socialism takes and redistributes wealth, but it is utterly incapable of creating wealth.

Governments resort to inflation with popular support because the people apparently are naïve enough to believe that they can have their cake and eat it, too.

There is really nothing that can be done except by an individual. Only individuals can learn. Only individuals can think creatively. Only individuals can cooperate. Only individuals can combat statism.

Such terms as communism, socialism, Fabianism, the welfare state, Nazism, fascism, state interventionism, egalitarianism, the planned economy, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier are simply different labels for much the same thing.

I would have government defend the life and property of all citizens equally; protect all willing exchange; suppress and penalize all fraud, all misrepresentation, all violence, all predatory practices; invoke a common justice under law; and keep the records incidental to these functions. Even this is a bigger assignment than governments, generally, have proven capable of. Let governments do these things and do them well. Leave all else to men in free and creative effort.

There could be no greater error than to conclude that statism caused prosperity.

There is no moral distinction between the act of a pickpocket and the progressive income tax.

In market terms, one is entitled to what others will offer in willing exchange. That is all!

The Constitution was definitely and specifically designed to hobble all people who are so foolish as to think themselves capable of leading others by compulsion. It so functions today to an extent exasperating to the authoritarians - which is why they want to get rid of it.

The American people are becoming more and more afraid of, and are running away from, their own revolution.

The advancement of freedom is not a matter of who wields political power over creative actions; rather, it depends upon the disassembling of such power.

The welfare state destroys the market mechanisms - lessens free choice and willing exchange. Simultaneously creating unnatural specializations, it must, granted statism's premise, resort to welfarism; that is, it must assume the responsibility for the people's welfare: their employment, their old age, their income, and the like. As this is done, man loses his wholeness; he is dispossessed of responsibility for self, the very essence of his manhood. The more dependent he becomes, the less dependable!

The proper and limited use of government is to invoke a common justice and keep the peace - and that is all.

The more complex our economy, the more we should rely on the miraculous, self-adapting processes of men acting freely. No mind of man nor any combination of minds can even envision, let alone intelligently control, the countless human energy exchanges in a simple society, to say nothing of a complex one.

Statism, which forces all of us within its orbit, is nothing but a political system of organized plunder, managed by every conceivable type of pressure group.

Whenever government assumed responsibility for the security, welfare, and prosperity of citizens, the costs of government rise beyond the point where it is politically expedient to cover them by direct tax levies.

...the greatest political problem facing the world today is...how to curb the oppressive power of government, how to keep it within reasonable bounds.

If we remove the hope of profit as a means to alleviate misfortune - poverty, illness, misery, disaster - we shall increase our misfortunes and make them permanent.

Were it necessary to bring a majority into a comprehension of the libertarian philosophy, the cause of liberty would be utterly hopeless. Every significant movement in history has been led by one or just a few individuals with a small minority of energetic supporters.

Once an activity has been socialized, it is impossible to point out, by concrete example, how men in a free market could better conduct it. How, for instance, can one compare a socialized post office with private postal delivery when the latter has been outlawed?

There is no greater dishonesty than man effecting his own private gains at the expense of others.

True, the free market ignores the poor precisely as it does not recognize the wealthy - it is 'no respecter of persons'

The libertarian can have no truck with 'left' or 'right' because he regrets any form of authoritarianism - the use of police force to control the creative life of man.

No one has more than scratched the surface when it comes to understanding and explaining the miracle of the market.