Category: Thought

[T]hrift is never popular. . . . If parliaments have historically been the guardians of thrift, they now have turned much rather into its sworn enemies. Nowadays, the political and national parties — maybe not exclusively in our own country, but certainly also here — tend to develop a certain covetousness, almost considered to be dutiful, for all kinds of benefits for their own electorate at the expense of the general public.

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, as quoted by Ludwig von Mises, “The Economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk” (Neue Freie Presse, Vienna, August 27, 1924) — described by Mises as “the last words that Böhm-Bawerk addressed to Austria’s financial authorities.”

It is the aim of public life to arrange that all forms of power are entrusted, so far as possible, to men who effectively consent to be bound by the obligation towards all human beings which lies upon everyone, and who understand the obligation.

Law is the quality of the permanent provisions for making this aim effective.

Simone Weil, draft for a Statement of Human Obligations (1943).

Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.

John Adams, Novanglus: or, A History of the Dispute with America, From Its Origin, in 1754, to the Present Time (1775), No. 3, first published in the Boston Gazette.

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”

What is the use of being elected or reelected, unless you stand for something?

Cleveland, grumbling to a friend, late in his term as 22nd President of the United States. See H. Paul Jeffers, An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland (2000), p. 200.

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”

There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.

Misattributed to John Adams.

But it is in the spirit of President Adams’s thought:

The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to be careful to prevent their growth in our own.

John Adams, First Address to Congress (November 23, 1797).

The fundamental purpose of property rights, and their fundamental accomplishment, is that they eliminate destructive competition for control of economic resources. Well-defined and well-protected property rights replace competition by violence with competition by peaceful means.

Armen Alchian, “Property Rights,” The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

See a recent article on Alchian by Peter J. Boettke, “Why Did Armen Alchian Have to Teach Economists About Property Rights?”

Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.