Top 32 Leonard Read Quotes
#1. The free market opens the way for men to operate at their moral best, and all observation confirms that the poor fare better under these circumstances than when the way is closed, as it is under socialism.
Leonard Read
#2. There is no greater dishonesty than man effecting his own private gains at the expense of others.
Leonard Read
#3. The American people are becoming more and more afraid of, and are running away from, their own revolution.
Leonard Read
#4. 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.
Leonard Read
#5. Once an activity has been socialized, it is impossible to point out, by concrete example, how men in a free market could better conduct it. How, for instance, can one compare a socialized post office with private postal delivery when the latter has been outlawed?
Leonard Read
#6. In market terms, one is entitled to what others will offer in willing exchange. That is all!
Leonard Read
#7. 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!
Leonard Read
#8. The system of plunder derives much of its support from individuals who do not subscribe to socialism but who say, 'We're paying for it, so we might as well get our share'
Leonard Read
#9. There could be no greater error than to conclude that statism caused prosperity.
Leonard Read
#10. Statism, which forces all of us within its orbit, is nothing but a political system of organized plunder, managed by every conceivable type of pressure group.
Leonard Read
#11. The greatest political problem facing the world today is ... how to curb the oppressive power of government, how to keep it within reasonable bounds.
Leonard Read
#12. Insecurity must follow the transfer of responsibility from self to others, particularly when transferred to arbitrary and capricious government. Genuine security is a matter of self-responsibility, based on the right to the fruits of one's own labor and freedom to trade.
Leonard Read
#13. Socialistic practices are now so ingrained in our thinking, so customary, so much a part of our mores, that we take them for granted.
Leonard Read
#14. What precisely is this disease that causes inflation and all these other troubles? It has many popular names, such as socialism, communism, state interventionism, and welfare statism.
Leonard Read
#15. [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.
Leonard Read
#16. The Constitution was definitely and specifically designed to hobble all people who are so foolish as to think themselves capable of leading others by compulsion. It so functions today to an extent exasperating to the authoritarians - which is why they want to get rid of it.
Leonard Read
#17. Under both the welfare state and communism, the responsibility for the welfare, security, and prosperity of the people is presumed to rest with the central government.
Leonard Read
#18. True, the free market ignores the poor precisely as it does not recognize the wealthy - it is 'no respecter of persons'
Leonard Read
#19. Were it necessary to bring a majority into a comprehension of the libertarian philosophy, the cause of liberty would be utterly hopeless. Every significant movement in history has been led by one or just a few individuals with a small minority of energetic supporters.
Leonard Read
#20. What, actually, is the difference between communism and fascism? Both are forms of statism, authoritarianism. The only difference between Stalin's communism and Mussolini's fascism is an insignificant detail in organizational structure.
Leonard Read
#21. Is it not obvious that the more complex an economy, the more certainly will governmental control of productive effort exert a retarding influence?
Leonard Read
#22. If we remove the hope of profit as a means to alleviate misfortune - poverty, illness, misery, disaster - we shall increase our misfortunes and make them permanent.
Leonard Read
#23. The solution to this problem [welfare-statism] must take a positive form: the restoration of a faith in what free men can accomplish.
Leonard Read
#24. There is really nothing that can be done except by an individual. Only individuals can learn. Only individuals can think creatively. Only individuals can cooperate. Only individuals can combat statism.
Leonard Read
#25. Such terms as communism, socialism, Fabianism, the welfare state, Nazism, fascism, state interventionism, egalitarianism, the planned economy, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier are simply different labels for much the same thing.
Leonard Read
#26. The advancement of freedom is not a matter of who wields political power over creative actions; rather, it depends upon the disassembling of such power.
Leonard Read
#27. Whenever government assumed responsibility for the security, welfare, and prosperity of citizens, the costs of government rise beyond the point where it is politically expedient to cover them by direct tax levies.
Leonard Read
#28. The libertarian can have no truck with 'left' or 'right' because he regrets any form of authoritarianism - the use of police force to control the creative life of man.
Leonard Read
#29. No one has more than scratched the surface when it comes to understanding and explaining the miracle of the market.
Leonard Read
#30. The proper and limited use of government is to invoke a common justice and keep the peace - and that is all.
Leonard Read
#31. Socialism takes and redistributes wealth, but it is utterly incapable of creating wealth.
Leonard Read
#32. 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.
Leonard Read
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