Murray Rothbard Quotes

The direction of the country isn't controlled by one person on top making decisions. It's a mass movement of people making a lot of individual decisions that add up to something broader.

When I was first elected to parliament 18 years ago, one of the many things that struck me and that I still feel now is how the Labour Party, the party of collective action, can, at MP level and above, behave in such an individualistic way.

I think that things happen individually first, and then collectively. It's not the other way around.

Most groups today aren't groups. In a true group all the members create the arrangements among themselves.

Minds do not act together in public; they simply stick together; and when their private activities are resumed, they fly apart again.

We too often prefer the individual thrill to collective responsibility.

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action of one alone.

Group action -- yes; group thinking -- no.

Collective action is a means of power, a means by which individuals can more fully realize their individual values.

When one person does something, you look like an outlier. And whether it makes sense or not, the states get a certain level of respect from the courts that other people don't.

In ideal form of social control is an atomised collection of individuals focused on their own narrow concern, lacking the kinds of organisations in which they can gain information, develop and articulate their thoughts, and act constructively to achieve common ends.

I don't really believe in the idea of the individual.

Too often, we rely on other people - whether it be politicians or institutions - to effect change.

To have a discussion about the plusses and minuses of various forms of group action, though, is going to require discussing the current tools and services as they exist, rather than discussing their caricatures or simply wishing that they would disappear.

... members of a powerful group are raised to believe (however illogically) that whatever affects it will also affect them. On theother hand, members of less powerful groups are raised to believe (however illogically) that each individual can escape the group's fate. Thus, cohesion is encouraged on the one hand, and disunity is fostered on the other.

While strength is the natural quality of an individual seen in isolation, power springs up between men when they act together and vanishes the moment they disperse.

I am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the State, the community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action.

The anarch wages his own wars, even when marching in rank and file

The fundamental basis of education must always remain that one must act for oneself. That is clear. One must act for him or herself.

Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the man dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, through defiance or submission, to the commands of others.

Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.

We live under the illusion that organizations are 'them' when, in reality, they are 'us.' If we wish to work in evolved organizations, we must each be the first to start the journey.

The basic of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual.

If the 19th [century] was the century of the individual (liberalism means individualism), you may consider that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the state.

In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable