Radicals for Capitalism Quotes

“Leonard Read noted admiringly that her simple and unobjectionable principle that no one ought to initiate physical force against another would, if applied “to present-day practices . . . be shocking to many persons.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“Orange County became known, to a large degree thanks to Hoiles himself, as “nut country,” the hotbed of the rightest of the right wing, the source of Barry Goldwater’s primary victory in California in 1964.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“One day, J. Howard Pew of Sun Oil called Read to tell him that he had $136,000 that he had to get rid of, for some arcane tax reason, in the next twenty-four hours-and would Read, along with Howard Kershner of Christian Economics (a more right-wing religious education group Pew also supported) figure out among themselves what they could best do with it? Thanks. And they did.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“LewRockwell.com, is overbrimming with pro-Confederacy, anti-American material (mostly in the context of polemics against the U.S. war efforts in Iraq), as well as writings by people who (in other venues) are unacceptably racist or so traditionally Christian they call for stoning of sinners according to Old Testament rules.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“This emphasis on the need for a conservative, traditionalist cultural context for libertarianism in his later years—and the way he turned venomously on every part of the libertarian movement not under the paleo tent in the pages of the newsletter he and Rockwell launched in 1990, the Rothbard/Rockwell Report—lost Rothbard many of his old fans and friends in the movement.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“The problem is, it builds into the idea that the world is divided into stupid people, evil people, and people who agree with me. The first thing you have to learn is that there are lots of brilliant, kind–hearted people who just disagree with you.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“As with many tempests in teapots among small, contentious, ideologically charged groups with a sense of millennial mission, it is hard for outsiders with the perspective of time to figure out what they were thinking, and why, and everyone involved can only remember that their side was right, and the other side wrong, with the most uncharitable possible spin put on the whole contretemps.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“The Rothbard crowd began its own official organization—the Radical Libertarian Alliance. (Its slogan: “War is murder. Taxation is theft. Conscription is slavery Government is chaos.”)”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“And, most significantly for the libertarian movement, he read Murray Rothbard’s article in Ramparts magazine and discovered that he wasn’t crazy and he wasn’t alone—that there was a real link between the right-wing spirit of his old ideological home and the new left he was increasingly attracted to.166”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“aiding and abetting avatars of a religio-politico-wacko machine run by Guy Ballard (who channeled his eternal wisdom under the name Godfre Ray King). Ballard claimed to be the reincarnation of George Washington, and a being—who can call him a mere man?—with”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“Rand knew that people don’t care if something doesn’t work, as long as the dominant morality of altruism tells them that it is right.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“Hayek later decided that what really separated him from his friend Keynes was that the latter always believed that certain advanced thinkers (Keynes among them, of course) could skillfully and accurately manipulate the social order to their own ends, without ill effects.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“Mises’s conclusion: “Whosoever foresees so clearly before the age of forty the disaster and the destruction of everything he deems of value, cannot escape pessimism and psychic depression.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“Nock’s “plan of action” was “a plan of no action at all. To Nock there was clearly only one path to follow, and that was to learn, to think, to write, to informally teach, and then, simply wait.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“With Constant, the chief articulator of his generation’s liberal ideas, we see the beginnings of classical liberalism’s ‘state-hatred,’ which, after the 18th century’s ambiguous attitude, marks its theory to the present day,” noted modern libertarian and historian of classical liberalism Ralph Raico.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“Magna Carta or no, the rights of Americans were not not theirs only because of any ancient “contract.” As James Wilson put it, using ancient legal terms, “The fee simple of freedom and government is declared to be in the people.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“The progress of markets and wealth in the past centuries has eliminated many aspects of day-to-day early American life that strike us today as tyrannical, from the sharp distinctions of rank, the religion-based social control in the towns, and of course the most prominent stain on America’s libertarian heritage, the status of blacks and women.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“Government, if it has any purpose at all (and many libertarians doubt it does), should be restricted to the protection of its citizens' persons and property against direct violence and theft.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“The first major postrevolutionary liberal in France was Benjamin Constant (whose novel Adolphe is better remembered than his political writings), who celebrated what he called “the liberty of the moderns” (actual liberty in day-to-day private affairs) in contrast to the classical “liberty of the ancients” that the French revolutionaries relied on overmuch, which merely meant “equal powerlessness before the state and equal participation in public affairs.”38”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“The twentieth-century movement for limited government—very limited government, extremely limited government, at times totally limited government—began in America, and American libertarians won’t let you forget it.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“crimes.As Fred Smith, head of the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, says, “When two libertarians find themselves agreeing on something, each knows the other has sold out.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“Libertarianism is based in economic theory, as economic science teaches how workable order can arise from the seeming chaos of free actions uncoordinated by a single outside intelligence, and how government intervention is apt to upset that balance. It is based in moral theory, positing what is or is not right when it comes to a human being, or group of human beings, using force or coercion on another. It is based in political theory, exploring the likely effects of granting human beings power over others. It is ultimately a delicate ecological balance of all these, with history in the mix as well, to further understand how the constant struggle of liberty versus power tends to play out in the real world.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“Libertarianism is based in economic theory, as economic science teaches how workable order can arise from the seeming chaos of free actions uncoordinated by a single outside intelligence, and how government intervention is apt to upset that balance.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement

“Its eventual goals include the abolition of all drug laws (not just those against currently illegal narcotics and hallucinogens, but an end to prescription laws and the Food and Drug Administration as well), the abolition of the income tax, the abolition of all regulation of private sexual relations (from marriage to prostitution and everything in between), an end to public ownership and regulation of the airwaves, an end to overseas military bases and all warmaking not in direct defense of the homeland, an end to the welfare state, and an end to any legal restrictions whatsoever on speech and expression. Libertarians’ policy prescriptions are based on a simple idea with very complicated repercussions: Government, if it has any purpose at all (and many libertarians doubt it does), should be restricted to the protection of its citizens’ persons and property against direct violence and theft. In their eyes, most modern government functions, if done by private individuals, would be seen as violence and theft. Libertarians’ economic reasoning leads them to the conclusion that, left to their own devices, a free people would spontaneously develop the institutions necessary for a healthy and wealthy culture. They think that state interference in the economy, whether through taxing or regulation, makes us all poorer rather than richer. Their ideas and policy prescriptions seem unbelievably radical in the current political context. But in many ways, libertarians argue, the United States was founded on libertarian principles. The Constitution defined a role for the federal government much smaller than what it practices today, and it restricted government to a limited set of mandated powers.”
― Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement