95 quotes
When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.
Before attempting to determine the effect of institutions, it is necessary to consider the inherent circumstances, constraints, and impelling forces at work in the environment within which the institutional mechanisms function.
Knowledge and Decisions (1980)
One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans-- anything except reason.
The cavemen had the same natural resources at their disposal as we have today, and the difference between their standard of living and ours is a difference between the knowledge they could bring to bear on those resources and the knowledge used today.
Knowledge and Decisions (1980)
Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.
Is Reality Optional? (1993)
In short, the sequence of payments is directly the opposite of what is assumed by those who talk about a “trickle-down” theory. The workers must be paid first and then the profits flow upward later— if at all.
While it is tempting to think of the history of economics as the history of a succession of great thinkers who advanced the quantity and quality of analysis in this field, seldom did these pioneers create perfected analyses.
The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.
History shows that degeneracy can be turned around because it has been done in the past. But the real question today is: Will we turn it around-or is what we are doing likely to make matters worse?
Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)
It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic.
Knowledge is one of the most scarce of all resources and a pricing system economizes on its use by forcing those with the most knowledge of their own particular situation to make bids for goods and resources based on that knowledge, rather than on their ability to influence other people in planning commissions, legislatures, or royal palaces.
Basic Economics (2010)
People will forgive you for being wrong, but they will never forgive you for being right – especially if events prove you right while proving them wrong.
Is Reality Optional? (1993)
Many economic fallacies depend upon (1) thinking of the economy as a set of zero-sum transactions, (2) ignoring the role of competition in the marketplace, or (3) not thinking beyond the initial consequences of particular policies.
In short, honesty is more than a moral principle. It is also a major economic factor. While government can do little to create honesty directly, in various ways it can indirectly either support or undermine the traditions on which honest conduct is based.
"Both history and contemporary data show that countries prosper more when there are stable and dependable rules, under which people can make investments without having to fear unpredictable new government interventions before these investments can pay off."
Nothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today's intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who together destroyed slavery around the world. And if it doesn't fit their vision, it is the same to them as if it never happened.
Letters from teachers continue to confirm the incompetence which they deny. A teacher in Montana says that my criticisms of teachers are "nieve." No, that wasn't a typographical error. He spelled it that way twice.
Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)
In short, it is not merely that Johnny can't read, or even that Johnny can't think. Johnny doesn't know what thinking is, because thinking is so often confused with feeling in many public schools. [emphasis in the original]
Inside American Education (1993)
Republicans won big, running as Republicans, in 2004. But once they took control of Congress, they started acting like Democrats and lost big. There is a lesson in that somewhere but whether Republicans will learn it is another story entirely.
In a country with more than 300 million people, it is remarkable how obsessed the media have become with just one—Donald Trump. What is even more remarkable is that, after seven years of repeated disasters, both domestically and internationally, under a glib egomaniac in the White House, so many potential voters are turning to another glib egomaniac to be his successor.