Herbert Hoover Quotes

Individualism is to collectivism as capitalism is to socialism

People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting bad economics because they have embraced collectivism.

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

I don't like the spirit of socialism – I think freedom is the basis of everything.

Competition has brought about two great opposing opinions; one that Government should do nothing, the other that it should do everything. The first arises from the contemplation of the immense wealth heaped up under a system of unimpeded individual action, and of the extraordinary folly and selfishness of the customs and legislation that controlled such action in the past. The second arises from the sufferings which unimpeded individualism has brought upon the working classes, who cry out that Government is bound to protect them from misery and starvation

The Plan provides economic safety while at the same time retaining a huge measure of economic liberty. The problem has been how to attain safety without losing freedom. A solution would appear to lie in comparatively simple compromise between socialism and individualism by applying the one to Necessaries and the other to Luxuries.

The anti-individualist enemies that Ayn Rand battled are still the enemy, but they've shifted their line of attack. Political collectivists are no longer much interested in taking things away from the wealthy and creative.

Socialism is the antithesis of opportunity and it's time to reject this failed and dangerous idea once and for all.

We do not want socialism.

Capitalism is based on individual rights - not on the sacrifice of the individual to the 'public good' of the collective.

The argument for collectivism is simple; free market is not.

Liberalism is a really old British tradition and it has a completely different attitude towards the individual and the relationship between the individual and the state than the collectivist response of Labour, and particularly Old Labour, does.

Conservatives brayed that government should stay out of the private sector; liberals bleated for nationalizing the banks.

To put it bluntly, there isn't one economic theory that can single-handedly explain Singapore's success; its economy combines extreme features of capitalism and socialism. All theories are partial; reality is complex.

America has to stand up and decide if we want to be a socialist nation or if we're going to be a free nation.

The independence of the economic sphere was a tenet of faith with Liberalism.

Capitalism is at least tolerable, which cannot be said of Socialism or Communism.

Dull would be the man who should merely tolerate this plan of social industry. Weak would be the position of him who should take an apologetic tone in defending it, or present its claims in a merely negative way, by exposing the evils and perils of the socialistic plan.

The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.

The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by some still supposed, between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state.

I think you hear, at least as an undertone, and it's going to grow louder, is that we believe that capitalism is the mantra of the day and anything that creeps towards socialism is a problem.

Either you believe in markets, or you believe in government.

We recommend a planned public relations and publicity campaign to position the Republican party as the defender of individual liberties against the encroachment of socialism, paternalism, and government control.

I do not believe in government ownership of anything which can with propriety be left in private hands, and in particular I should most strenuously object to government ownership of railroads. In my judgment public ownership of railroads is highly undesirable and would probably in this country entail far-reaching disaster.

We want a market economy without any adjectives. Any compromises with that will only fuzzy up the problems we have.