Entrepreneurship

Cather's most straightforwardly economic book is O Pioneers! (1913).

"The Austrian School is the most humane form of economics we know, and the most philosophically informed — hence we regard it as the most relevant to humanistic studies."

In a governmentally controlled society, the unrestricted enjoyment of property ownership is not permitted, since government has the power to tax, regulate, and sometimes even confiscate (as in eminent domain) just about anything it pleases. In a laissez-faire society, everything which was valued and rationally claimed would be owned, and this ownership would be total.

As champions of liberty, Paine and Bastiat threw the covers off the fallacies and institutions that stood in the way of its realization. Both writers bequeathed to us arsenals of intellectual ammunition that will always be deadly to statism.

Here is the truth that environmentalists do not face: Sometimes conserving is not a good idea.

"It turns out that there was nothing inevitable about cultural decline. All it takes is one person to make the change."

Ch'ien was one of the world's first monetary theorists. He pointed out that increased quantity and a debased quality of coinage by government depreciates the value of money and makes prices rise. And he saw too that government inherently tended to engage in this sort of inflation and debasement.

There are no natural laws governing the behavior of complex systems.

The human desire for freedom has always run up against those who believe "too much" freedom is a bad thing and that the "common good" — as defined by some elite — outweighs the rights of the individual.

The greatest economic charity is that which enables persons to become independent of alms and therefore most self-reliant and secure under freedom.