Christopher Chase Rachels > Quotes

“The State has a legal monopoly on the right to use aggression against others in the form of taxation and compulsory edicts (legislation). Not only must “customers” pay into its operation without regard to their consent, but they must surrender to the rules its internal processes determine at all times. Additionally, the State has a monopoly on the provision of security, and has anointed itself as the ultimate arbiter in all conflicts, including those conflicts which involve its own agents. It”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and anonymous online markets such as the Silk Road. Digital cryptocurrencies provide an individual with an array of benefits unlike anything the market actor has ever experienced. They provide a means by which one may transfer wealth securely, anonymously, and with virtually zero transaction costs. Naturally, this allows one to safely avoid taxes in the course of a transaction as there is no means by which said transaction may be traced backed to him. More importantly however, the use of such digital currencies normalizes the idea of using private currencies to the general public. The State's status as the sole producer of money is one of its greatest sources of legitimacy and power; thus, the proliferation and expanding use of private currencies constitute effective means by which State rule may be peacefully undermined.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Argumentation, then, is by its very nature persuasive and non-coercive. If one were to attempt to use physical coercion in the course of an argument, this would undermine the intent of discovering truth or falsehood, thereby precluding such an act from being compatible with argumentation. As such, for someone to engage in argumentation with another would require an implicit acceptance that the other party has the right to exclusive control over his own body.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“As the number of individuals who had been “peacefully reared” grows, the State's power and legitimacy will correspondingly fade. These individuals will likely be among the more avid and vociferous promoters of the libertarian philosophy for two reasons: (1) They will not be as conditioned as their counterparts to accept edicts given by arbitrary authority figures, and the fear emanating from the State's threats will accordingly be less effective against them; and, (2) they will already have experienced how free associations organize and form, and the benefits they entail.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Aggression does not satisfy the inherent demands of existence, i.e., the demand for acquiring food, shelter, water, education, love, etc. On the contrary, it exacerbates such needs and creates a zero-sum game between the members of society, where one may only gain at the direct expense of others. Aggression thus promotes chaos, not cooperation. Only when individuals choose to deal with each other voluntarily and respect private property rights may their dealings result in mutual benefit and a net increase in their wealth. Ludwig”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“The fight against aggression – which is the fight for liberty – is the most important one of our time and will continue to be until liberty has prevailed. Ending the story of our enslavement should be top priority for those seeking to liberate man from all manners of oppression, subjugation, and exploitation.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“As in all other industries, however, the free market provision of medical care is not only more ethical, but also more effective at providing more accessible and higher quality treatment than any state-regulated or provided health care service.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“A free market society is one that is absent of any institutionalized aggression or legal privilege. This society allows all possible mutually beneficial exchanges between parties, and it therefore produces the greatest amount of wealth. There”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“In a free market society, the functions of security, auditing, media, consumer evaluations, insurance, investigation, arbitration, and law enforcement will be provided in tandem in order to maintain the protection of the consumers that finance them. Highly contingent and specific details cannot be determined beforehand, however.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“To support any position, or to undercut the position of an opponent, one must make use of truth-claims in the course of an argument. Hence, that language, argumentation, and truth-validity are genuinely meaningful concepts must already be presupposed if one is to make a case for, or against, anything at all.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“The IP system actually serves to suppress ingenuity! But how is this? Well, because as a creator of any sort, one would immediately experience limitations upon what information he would be permitted to use in pursuit of his invention, song, or whatever else he is attempting to create. In other words, the suppression of innovation would take the form of all the information whose use and access would be safeguarded under the auspices of copyright, patents, trademarks, etc. One would not be able to avail himself of the body of many others' work as it would be “protected” by IP and thus become inaccessible or costly to attain.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“The only rights people have, according to free market anarchists (libertarians), are property rights. The Non-Aggression Principle itself is simply a derivative of one's ownership of his own body and property. Owning something, after all, entails the exclusive right to employ said something so long as such employment does not entail aggressive interference with the persons or property of others.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Hoppe demonstrates that the State is not immune from the principles of economics. The exercise of a State monopoly over the provision of any service will lead to the same inefficiencies and destruction of wealth as any other monopolistic operation. The”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“The absence of the State is not a lacking of governance or a social safety net, but rather the presence of a beautiful spontaneous order whose efficacy and humanitarian output could never be paralleled by central fiat.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Contrary to the popular demonization of profits as extraction of surplus value, profits in freed markets actually represent the adding of value to society. Making”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“One of the most perpetrated myths regarding corporations is that they are or must be creatures of the State. This is categorically false, and is often times mistakenly thought to be the case due to the modern day marriage between various mega-corporations and the State. However, this is merely a symptom of a State regulated economy. There”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“It is important to consider that before the State is able to do anything, it must first violate the property rights of its citizens through the collecting of taxes. Despite this fact, however, the State is still predominately held as the single institution capable of competently protecting private property rights. This blatant paradox may only be perpetuated through incessant propaganda. For”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Invariably, the larger a given firm becomes the more involved it will tend to be with matters of the State as its success increasingly comes to rely on compliance with an entrenched regulatory apparatus. In addition to this, a larger firm will have more resources by which to direct the State's power in its own favor and to the expense of its competitors.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Thus, the true obstacles to wealth generation are the entities which attempt to artificially regulate the use of economic goods for which they themselves have no just claim. The State is a prime example of just that: an institution which asserts control over economic goods that its agents never acquired through original appropriation or voluntary exchange.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“In addition to its purely criminal nature, taxation also hinders the production of wealth. The funds taken by taxes do not reflect consumer demand for a given good or service, but rather are the result of violent confiscation. This”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Thus, contrary to the popular narrative that people are slaves to the terms on which a given employer may be willing to hire them, the employers themselves are subject to concrete economic incentives not to short change employees either on the basis of wages or working conditions. Such incentives are due to competition between employers for labor, just as there is competition between prospective employees for jobs. If”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“In truth, the only thing that must be done to ensure a tendency toward efficient and ethical banking systems is to ground the legal system in the private property ethic. This naturally entails abolishing the State and allowing the organic governance of the free market to reign. The”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“A less obvious cost of the IP system is the chilling effect it has on small businesses. There are thousands upon thousands, if not millions, of patents and other IP certifications of which one may never be apprised and yet will still be subject to a forfeiture of his liberties if he is found to be in violation of any one of them. Powerful”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Legislative law systems also tend to be inferior as the legal system is comprised of many disparate laws unrelated to any rationally justified principles, and as such, are less credible compared to decentralized legal systems which tend to extrapolate from organically established legal principles. Furthermore,”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“According to Ayn Rand, “an axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it." This”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Public schools are only marginally concerned with parental satisfaction as they cannot, under threat of force, withdraw their financial support from them. Aaron”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Contrary to empiricist doctrine, then, the principle of causality must be taken to be a meaningful synthetic a priori statement. In fact, no empirical science could be undertaken without this basic, non-observable, non-falsifiable, understanding that causes create effects in constant and predictable ways.19”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Economic goods are simply any scarce means that a person sees as having the capacity to achieve a certain desired end. Thus,”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Specifically regarding the problem at hand: in a private-law society the production of security — of law and order — will be undertaken by freely financed individuals and agencies competing for a voluntarily paying (or not-paying) clientèle, just as the production of all other goods and services.13”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Fiat money is commonly referred to as “paper money” as it is not “backed by” – or redeemable for – any particular good or commodity. Such money is brought into existence by the coercive dictates of States and is deemed “legal tender” by law (i.e., by central fiat). When the State supports or creates fiat money, it usually does so by means of legal tender laws. This requires that all creditors under its jurisdiction accept it as payment of debt under threat of legal action for non-compliance.”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society