Murray Rothbard Quotes

Printing money is merely taxation in another form.

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.

Inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary. For this reason all those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control should concentrate their effort on monetary policy.

The monetary managers are fond of telling us that they have substituted 'responsible money management' for the gold standard. But there is no historic record of responsible paper money management ... The record taken, as a whole is one of hyperinflation, devaluation and monetary chaos.

The government, in my judgment, cannot create money; the government can give its note, like an individual, and the prospect of its being paid determines its value.

The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented.

When the government runs out of lenders, it can do something that households are forbidden to do: print money.

The problem with money issued by any government is that its only value is what those in charge decree.

If you increase the quantity of money, you bring about the lowering of the purchasing power of the monetary unit.

We could, of course, always make the payments, simply by printing more money - we simply promise to pay people by giving them dollar bills - but that could set off inflation.

Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead toward totalitarianism .

Inflation is an increase in the quantity of money without a corresponding increase in the demand for money, i.e., for cash holdings.

Printing money creates inflation, which weakens an economy. Unfortunately, this kind of common-sense thinking never seems to penetrate academic circles.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

Each money-printing exercise brings about unintended consequences. These unintended consequences are higher inflation rates than had no money been printed.

All money is a matter of belief.

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense... that gold and economic freedom are inseparable.

It is a way to take people's wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.

The power to regulate the value of money does not involve a power to dilute the value of money by inflation, an absurd and self-serving rendering.

Paper money never was beat.

In all Sovereignties in Europe where Paper-Money was introduced, great Inconveniencies happened; upon canceling this Paper Medium all those Inconveniencies did vanish

The Power the Magistrat [head of government] has to alter the Money in its Denomination or Fineness, takes away the chief Quality for which Silver was made Money

The currency of any country, whether it be coin or bank-notes, cannot be increased beyond the mercantile wants of that country, without producing a depreciation in the parts which compose the currency.

When you get inflation, you get massive distortions of the economy.