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In the market, the fittest are those most able to serve the consumers; in government, the fittest are those most adept at wielding coercion and/or those most adroit at making demagogic appeals to the voting public.
Murray Rothbard
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote contrasts the qualities needed to succeed in market competition with those needed in politics.

Murray Rothbard's quote highlights a significant distinction between the qualities that drive success in the marketplace versus those that lead to power in government. In a free market, success is determined by the ability to meet consumers' needs and preferences, while in the political arena, success often comes from the skillful use of coercion or persuasive rhetoric aimed at gaining public support, which may not necessarily reflect genuine merit or service to society. This observation raises important questions about the nature of success and the values that underpin different social systems.

Themes

MarketGovernmentSuccessCoercionDemagoguery

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a discussion about the differences between capitalism and socialism.

More from Murray Rothbard

Human life is not some sort of race or game in which each person should start from an identical mark. It is an attempt by each man to be as happy as possible. And each person could not begin from the same point, for the world has not just come into being; it is diverse and infinitely varied in its parts. The mere fact that one individual is necessarily born in a different place from someone else immediately insures that his inherited opportunity cannot be the same as his neighbor's.
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Ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner.
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The 'boom-bust' cycle is generated by monetary intervention in the market, specifically bank credit expansion to business.
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No one may threaten or commit violence ('aggress') against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a non-aggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory.
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If government manages to establish paper tickets or bank credit as money, as equivalent to gold grams or ounces, then the government, as dominant money-supplier, becomes free to create money costlessly and at will. As a result, this 'inflation' of the money supply destroys the value of the dollar or pound, drives up prices, cripples economic calculation, and hobbles and seriously damages the workings of the market economy.
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Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible ‘anarchy’, why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?
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