Quotes by Leonard Read

Leonard Read

…the greatest political problem facing the world today is…how to curb the oppressive power of government, how to keep it within reasonable bounds.

Government

Political

World

[S]tatism is but socialized dishonesty; it is feathering the nests of some with feathers coercively plucked from others – on the grand scale. There is no moral difference between the act of a pickpocket and the progressive income tax or any other social program.

Differences

Income

Liberty

A fact rarely suspected, let alone understood, is that businessmen are by no means the chief beneficiaries of the free market, private ownership, limited government way of life. Many business ventures fail entirely. Who then are the beneficiaries? The masses!

Government

Mean

Venture

Assume that a surgeon has discovered how to do brain surgery, that he can do only one a month, that 1,000 persons a year need such an operation if they are to survive. How is the surgeon’s scarce resource to be allocated? Charge whatever price is necessary to adjust supply and demand, say $50,000! ‘For shame,’ some will cry. ‘Your market system will save only wealthy people.’ For the moment, yes. But soon there will be hundreds of surgeons who will acquire the same skill; and, as in the case of the once scarce and expensive ‘miracle drugs,’ the price then will be within reach of all.

People

Skills

Years

Coercion is as much the tool of the welfare state as it is of communism. The programs and edicts of both are backed by the police force. All of us know this to be true under communism, but it is equally true under our own brand of welfare statism.

Coercion

Police

Tools

Governments resort to inflation with popular support because the people apparently are naïve enough to believe that they can have their cake and eat it, too.

Believe

Cake

Government

I can remember the time when, if we wanted a house or housing, we relied on private enterprise. In fact, Americans built more square feet of housing per person than any other country on the face of the earth. Despite that remarkable accomplishment, more and more people are coming to believe that the only way we can have adequate housing is to use government to take the earnings from some and give these earnings, in the form of housing, to others.

Believe

Country

Feet

I would have government defend the life and property of all citizens equally; protect all willing exchange; suppress and penalize all fraud, all misrepresentation, all violence, all predatory practices; invoke a common justice under law; and keep the records incidental to these functions. Even this is a bigger assignment than governments, generally, have proven capable of. Let governments do these things and do them well. Leave all else to men in free and creative effort.

Law

Letting Go

Men

I would like to suggest to you that the extent to which government in America has departed from the original design of in habiting the destructive actions of man and invoking a common justice; the extent to which government has invaded the productive and creative areas; the extent to which the government in this country has assumed the responsibility for the security, welfare, and prosperity of our people is a measure of the extent to which socialism has developed here in this land of ours.

Country

Men

Responsibility

If the bureaucracy is not checked, it will tend to build, in the name of peace, a defense against every conceivable contingency – so much ‘security’ that ‘the secured’ are without resources – helpless and hopeless.

Defense

Hopeless

Names

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Artist

Believe

Cake

Causes

Citizens

Coercion

Country

Creating

Creative

Defense

Details

Differences

Disease

Dishonesty

Distinction

Doe

Done

Economy

Editors

Effort

Egalitarianism

Errors

Essence

Example

Feet

Free Market

Gains

Gold

Government

Granted

Greater

Hopeless

Income

Individual

Individualism

Influence

Integrity

Justice

Labels

Law

Letting Go

Libertarian

Libertarian Party

Liberty

Mean

Men

Might

Miracle

Misery

Moral

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by Leonard Read

Leonard Read

…the greatest political problem facing the world today is…how to curb the oppressive power of government, how to keep it within reasonable bounds.

[S]tatism is but socialized dishonesty; it is feathering the nests of some with feathers coercively plucked from others – on the grand scale. There is no moral difference between the act of a pickpocket and the progressive income tax or any other social program.

A fact rarely suspected, let alone understood, is that businessmen are by no means the chief beneficiaries of the free market, private ownership, limited government way of life. Many business ventures fail entirely. Who then are the beneficiaries? The masses!

Coercion is as much the tool of the welfare state as it is of communism. The programs and edicts of both are backed by the police force. All of us know this to be true under communism, but it is equally true under our own brand of welfare statism.

Governments resort to inflation with popular support because the people apparently are naïve enough to believe that they can have their cake and eat it, too.

If the bureaucracy is not checked, it will tend to build, in the name of peace, a defense against every conceivable contingency – so much ‘security’ that ‘the secured’ are without resources – helpless and hopeless.

Get Social with TBU

Topics by Leonard Read

Popular Tools

The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

Menu

Menu