I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there’s something wrong, pass a law and do something about it.
The central banks cannot control interest rates. That’s a mistake. They can control a particular rate, such as the Federal Funds rate, if they want to, but they can’t control interest rates.
I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
The only reason free markets have a ghost of a chance is that they are so much more efficient than any other form of organization.
If a tax cut increases government revenues, you haven’t cut taxes enough.
Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.
No central banker would disagree with the proposition that inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. Not one of them will disagree that every inflation has been accompanied by a rapid increase in the quantity of money and every deflation by a decline in the quantity of money.
One role of prohibition is in making the drug market more lucrative.
See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That’s literally true.
We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.
There’s nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.
To really understand something you’ve got to reduce it to its principles.
Congress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay.
With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.
The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the “rule of the game” and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.
Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.
I’d like to promote lots of things. I’d like to promote elimination of drug prohibition. I’d like to promote parental choice in education through vouchers. Those are two things I think are very urgent and important. They’re both more important than the harm which Social Security will do.
The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.
Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.