Laissez Faire Capitalism Quotes

• I am now a fundamentalist American; give me time and I will tell you why individualism, laissez-faire and the slightly restrained anarchy of capitalism offer the best opportunities for the development of the human spirit.

  Rose Wilder Lane

  Opportunity, Giving, Development

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• Laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system based on the recognition of individual rights and, therefore, the only system that bans force from social relationships.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Recognition, Individual

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.35, Penguin

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• If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with bank-notes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal-mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Real, Filled Up, Digging A Hole

  John Maynard Keynes (2006). “General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money”, p.116, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• [T]he theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Book, Competition, Liberty

  "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money". Book by John Maynard Keynes, Preface to the German Edition, February, 1936.

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• The Romanticists predominantly, were enemies of capitalism, which they regarded as a prosaic, materialistic, “petty bourgeois” system — never realizing that it was the only system that could make freedom, individuality and the pursuit of values possible in practice.

  Ayn Rand

  Practice, Individuality, Pursuit

  "Ayn Rand Reader".

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• The laissez-faire argument relies on the same tacit appeal to perfection as does communism.

  George Soros

  Perfection, Doe, Libertarian

  "The Capitalist Threat". www.theatlantic.com. February 1997.

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• Although I have made a fortune in the financial markets, I now fear that the untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society. The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

  George Soros

  Believe, Enemy, Society

  "The Capitalist Threat". www.theatlantic.com. February 1997.

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• Government control of the economy, no matter in whose behalf, has been the source of all the evils in our industrial society -- and the solution is laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., the abolition of any and all forms of intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.

  Ayn Rand

  Government, Evil, Church

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• Laissez-faire capitalism, or anarchocapitalism, is simply the economic form of the libertarian ethic. Laissez-faire capitalism encompasses the notion that men should exchange goods and services, without regulation, solely on the basis of value for value. It recognizes charity and communal enterprises as voluntary versions of this same ethic. Such a system would be straight barter, except for the widely felt need for a division of labor in which men, voluntarily, accept value tokens such as cash and credit. Economically, this system is anarchy, and proudly so.

  Karl Hess

  Men, Division Of Labor, Credit

  "The Death of Politics". Playboy Magazine, March 1969.

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• Capitalism is the only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible in practice. When I say 'capitalism,' I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism - with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Practice, Individuality

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• Radicals, on the other hand, want to advance from the jungle of laissez-faire capitalism to a world worthy of the name of human civilization. They hope for a future where the means of economic production will be owned by all of the people instead of just a comparative handful. They feel that this minority control of production facilities is injurious to the large masses of people not only because of economic monopolies but because the political power inherent in this form of centralized economy does not augur for an ever expanding democratic way of life.

  Saul Alinsky

  Mean, Hands, Civilization

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• The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

  George Soros

  Believe, Enemy, Investing

  "The Capitalist Threat" by George Soros, www.theatlantic.com. February 1997.

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• Her philosophy is carpe diem for herself and laissez faire for others.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Philosophy, Carpe Diem, Laissez Faire

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2015). “The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works”, p.226, e-artnow

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• Adam Smith's was a real universalism in intent. Laissez Faire was intended to establish a world community as well as a natural harmony of interests within each nation... But the "children of darkness" were able to make good use of his creed. A dogma which was intended to guarantee the economic freedom of the individual became the "ideology" of vast corporate structures of a later period of capitalism, used by them, and still used, to prevent a proper political control of their power.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Children, Real, Community

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• My parents couldnt be looser. It was the ultimate laissez faire upbringing.

  Charlie Trotter

  Parent, Ultimate, Upbringing

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• Laissez faire (in its full true meaning) opens the way to the realization of the noble dreams of socialism.

  Henry George

  Dream, Noble, Realization

  Henry George (1886). “Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry Into the Cause of Industrial Depressions, and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth [and] the Remedy”

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• There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.

  Gore Vidal

  Party, Wings, Two

  "Gore Vidal obituary" by Jay Parini, www.theguardian.com. August 1, 2012.

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• The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve 'the common good.' It is true that capitalism does -- if that catch-phrase has any meaning -- but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification for capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice

  Ayn Rand

  Lying, Men, Justice

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.78, Penguin

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• Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.

  Nicolas Sarkozy

  Powerful, Knows, Finished

  "Europe's Conservatives Sour On the Free Market" by Bruce Crumley, content.time.com. September 26, 2008.

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• There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt - until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.

  Gore Vidal

  Party, Hands, Wings

  FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Jul 27, 2011

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• Unrestricted laissez faire capitalism allocates resources in a most efficient way to satisfy human wants without regard to the rationality or morality of those desires.

  Jerry Pournelle

  Political, Desire, Politics

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