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If one behaved as a good citizen or a charitable person simply because one was dreadfully scared of the state placing one in jail, one would not be a good citizen or person but barely more than a circus animal.

— Tibor R. Machan Classical Individualism: The Supreme Importance of Each Human Being (1998)

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More quotes by Tibor R. Machan

Without a market in which allocations can be made in obedience to the law of supply and demand, it is difficult or impossible to funnel resources with respect to actual human preferences and goals.

Ethics requires the kind of personal reflection, in the end, that no one else can do decisively for any individual.

The Promise of Liberty: A Non-Utopian Vision (2009)

The institution of taxation is not a civilized but a barbaric method to fund anything... it amounts to... a gross violation of human liberty.

Regulatory policies are inherently redistributive; that is, they involve the seizure of earned income for purposes of allocating this income in ways the government’s policymakers believe are more important than do those whose income has been seized.

Private Rights and Public Illusions (1994)

If welfare and equality are to be primary aims of law, some people must necessarily possess a greater power of coercion in order to force redistribution of material goods. Political power alone should be equal among human beings; yet striving for other kinds of equality absolutely requires political inequality.

Private Rights and Public Illusions (1994)

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