Jeffrey Tucker
37 quotes
Biography
"Anarchy is all around us. Without it, our world would fall apart. All progress is due to it. All order extends from it. All blessed things that rise above the state of nature are owned to it. The human race thrives only because of the lack of control, not because of it. I’m saying that we need ever more absence of control to make the world a more beautiful place. It is a paradox that we must forever explain."
"Politics is a dirty business, a ruse, an ideological cul-de-sac, a vast looter of intellectual and financial resources, a lie that corrupts, a deceiver, a means of unleashing vast evil in the world of the most unexpected and undetected sort and the greatest diverter of human productivity ever concocted by those who do not believe in authentic social and economic progress."
"I'm not for pretending that bad stuff doesn't exist, and a passion for justice and truth is a libertarian trait. But the idea of liberty should also reveal new forms of beauty in the world, astonishing evidence of order without dictate, lovely examples of innovation without planning, and other magical things. Surely these deserve some attention too."
"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."
"We really don’t get all the government we pay for, and thank goodness. Lord protect us on the day that we do."
"Here we have the heart of the difference between Hayek and Keynes: one knew that markets work to give us the best of all possible worlds, while governments create and exacerbate malfunctions; the other imagined that governments were somehow capable of both perceiving and correcting malfunctions by means of the printing press, provided the right technocrats are in charge."
"Here is a principle to use in all aspects of economics and policy. When you find a good or service that is in huge demand but the supply is so limited to the point that the price goes up and up, look for the regulation that is causing it. This applies regardless of the sector, whether transportation, gas, education, food, beer, or daycare. There is something in the way that is preventing the market from working as it should. If you look carefully enough, you will find the hand of the state making the mess in question."
"The goal of intellectual life should be to see and understand what is true, not merely to adhere to a prevailing orthodoxy."
"Free markets are the real people's revolution."
"Freedom is the foundation for all wonderful things in life."
"Morals do not come from the state and society. Morality deals with weightier matters that measure our thoughts, words, and deeds against universals that are true regardless of time and place."
"Now, I’m not saying that we don’t need rules in society. But the question of who makes the rules and on what basis becomes supremely important. Will the rule-making flow from the matrix of voluntary exchange based on the ethic of serving others through private enterprise? Or will the rules be made and enforced by people wearing guns and bulletproof vests with a license to shock or kill based on minor annoyances?"
"Socialism is not really an option in the material world. There can be no collective ownership of anything materially scarce. One or another faction will assert control in the name of society. Inevitably, the faction will be the most powerful in society -- that is, the state. This is why all attempts to create socialism in scarce goods or services devolve into totalitarian systems of top-down planning."
"Why anarchy? Because anything less would be uncivilized."
"People and institutions that refuse to admit error eventually discredit themselves."
"Even the richest person, provided the riches comes from mutually beneficial exchange, does not need to give anything "back" to the community, because this person took nothing out of the community. Indeed, the reverse is true: Enterprises give to the community. Their owners take huge risks, and front the money for investment, precisely with the goal of serving others. Their riches are signs that they have achieved their aims."
"There is only a certain amount of wealth in the world, this thinking goes. Economics is a matter of acquiring and allocating, not creating. This was the view of the world’s smartest people, all top philosophers and not stupid people, for many thousands of years before the age of the enlightenment. It still is."
"Growing economies are built by billions of actors behaving according to their own interests, coordinated through institutions that no one in particular created.Realizing this requires humility, a trait that is in short supply among would-be dictators, politicians, and bureaucrats, which is precisely why these groups are the proven enemies of prosperity in all times and places."
"The overwhelming tendency of markets is to bring people together, break down prejudices, persuade people of the need to cooperate regardless of class, race, religion, sex/gender, and physical ability. The same is obviously and especially true of sexual orientation. It is the market that rewards people who put aside their biases and seek gains through trade. This is why states devoted to racialist and hateful policies always resort to violence in control of the marketplace."
"Copyright: a system of monopoly privilege over the expression of ideas that enables government to stop consumer-friendly economic development and reward uncompetitive and legally privileged elites to fleece the public through surreptitious use of coercion."
"Commerce tends toward rewarding inclusion, broadness, and liberality. Tribal loyalties, ethnic and religious bigotries, and irrational prejudices are bad for business. The merchant class has been conventionally distrusted by tribalist leaders -- from the ancient to the modern world -- precisely because merchantcraft tends to break down barriers between groups."
"Without anarchy, there would be chaos."
"The instant that any government obtains a monetary printing press, it becomes a deeply dishonest government, empowered to rob people by stealth. A government with the power to print money knows no limits."
"Recall that the minimum wage was initially conceived as a method to exclude undesirables from the workforce."
"Ultimately, all arguments against markets are arguments against anarchy. Marx understood this much, at least."