key Property Rights
Legal rights to own and use property
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"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."
menu_book Book of Exodus
View Full QuoteView Full Quote"Remove the family motive, the prospect of passing one's enterprise to one's heirs, and you undermine the economy. You do not destroy it entirely, but you handicap it."
"Man arrives on earth as a beggar, and as a beggar he leaves it. He receives all initial endowments from others. Eventually, he bequeaths to others whatever he may have accumulated over many years. Gifts at the beginning, gifts at the end."
menu_book Abundance, Generosity, and the State
View Full QuoteView Full Quote"The greater the income, the greater the gifts. In a flourishing economy, gifts of time and money tend to grow faster than the rest of the economy."
"Paper money has never been introduced through voluntary cooperation. In all known cases it has been introduced through coercion and compulsion, sometimes with the threat of the death penalty."
menu_book The Ethics of Money Production
View Full Quote"Modern government is a black hole for gratuitous goods. It does not operate gratuitously, but in all its activities is deeply interested in its own survival and flourishing. The main beneficiaries of the state are its own servants, especially its bureaucratic and political leadership, whereas it systematically destroys the true sources of gratuitous goods: families, friendship, private associations, businesses, and the market process."
menu_book Abundance, Generosity, and the State
View Full QuoteView Full Quote"It is a sharing of plunder, not a gift, the state is not the legitimate owner of what it has taken from the taxpayer."
"Ideas are not naturally scarce. However, by recognizing a right in an ideal object, one creates scarcity where none existed before."
menu_book Against Intellectual Property
View Full Quote"By inventing a new technique for digging a well, the inventor can prevent all others in the world from digging wells in this manner."
menu_book Against Intellectual Property
View Full Quote"Only because scarcity exists is there even a problem of formulating moral laws; insofar as goods are superabundant ('free' goods), no conflict over the use of goods is possible and no action-coordination is needed."
menu_book Against Intellectual Property
View Full Quote"The prince is not the owner of the private property of his subjects. To impose new taxes or to increase old ones without the consent of the people is an act of tyranny, contrary to natural law and destructive of the commonwealth."
menu_book De Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)
View Full Quote"When buyers and sellers are free to act, and neither fraud nor force is present, the price that results from their voluntary agreement is just, for justice in commerce consists in the freedom of exchange, not in the equality of the things exchanged."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"If a merchant knows that goods will soon be cheaper in a particular place, or that supply will increase, he is not obliged to inform buyers of this. It is not unjust to sell at the current market price, since the price is set by common estimation, not by future conditions."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"Such mutation is more unjust and harmful to the whole community than usury; indeed, it amounts to manifest robbery and fraud."
menu_book Treatise on the Origin, Nature, Law, and Alterations of Money
View Full Quote"Money is not the private property of the prince. It was invented for the sake of the community, and belongs to that community."
menu_book Treatise on the Origin, Nature, Law, and Alterations of Money
View Full Quote"Private ownership of goods is not contrary to natural law, but was introduced by human reason for the utility of human life. For natural law does not forbid private possession; rather, it requires that what is acquired by legitimate means be respected as belonging to its possessor."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"The barbarians undoubtedly possessed true dominion, both public and private, before the arrival of the Spaniards among them, just as Christians possess it. Neither their princes nor private persons could be despoiled of their property on the ground that they were not true owners."
menu_book De Indis (On the Indians)
View Full Quoteauto_stories Books
Abundance, Generosity, and the State
An Austrian economics analysis of generosity and giving, arguing that free markets foster genuine charity through wealth creation, while state redi...
Read MoreAgainst Intellectual Property
Drawing on Austrian property rights theory and the insight that ideas are non-scarce goods, argues that patents and copyrights are not natural righ...
Read MoreBook of Exodus
The second book of the Bible, recounting the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt under Moses and the covenant at Mount Sinai. It contains the T...
Read MoreDe Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Luis de Molina's six-volume masterwork on justice and law, completed in 1593. Molina's most enduring economic contribution is his clear formulation...
Read MoreDe Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Domingo de Soto's systematic treatment of justice and law, published in 1553. Soto develops a rigorous natural law analysis of property rights, the...
Read MoreThe Ethics of Liberty
Comprehensive philosophical treatise establishing a natural rights foundation for libertarianism, deriving property rights from self-ownership and ...
Read MoreLegal Foundations of a Free Society
A comprehensive collection of revised essays spanning three decades of libertarian legal theory, covering the foundations of rights, punishment, co...
Read MoreLibéralisme
A systematic and uncompromising defence of classical liberalism, arguing that all social questions resolve into one fundamental choice between a li...
Read MoreA Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: Economics, Politics, and Ethics
Systematic comparison of capitalism and socialism, examining the economic and ethical foundations of different property systems and their consequen...
Read MoreTwo Treatises of Government
Foundational work of liberal political philosophy establishing natural rights, the social contract, and the right to revolution against tyrannical ...
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