Robert LeFevre: Governance

Robert LeFevre was American libertarian businessman. Explore interesting quotes on governance.

Robert LeFevre: 94 quotes0 likes

“Politics may be defined as: the method adopted in governments for obtaining motivation toward a monopoly. In all political actions, a monopoly of control and method is sought.”

Rampart Institute, p.411
The Fundamental of Liberty (1988)

“The bill of grievances contained in the immortal Declaration of Independence could be extended by our own citizens in modern times, had they the stomach for it. … So important is the right and duty of the people to dispense with despotism, this great Declaration contains the sentence not once, but twice. In its final utterance, the choice of words does not call for the formation of a government. Rather, it calls for "new guards" which may or may not entail such a unit as an artificial agency.”

This Bread is Mine (Milwaukee, Wisconsin: American Liberty Press, (1960) pp. 363, 365. Source. http://alexpeak.com/twr/doi/

“If men are good, you don’t need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don’t dare have one.”

As quoted in Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer, L.K. Samuels, editor, Freeland Press and Rampart Institute, Santa Ana: CA, Chap. 5, p. 70

“Many times when I use the term 'government', people think that I mean law and order. And so, if they hear me say: 'We don't need government', they think I mean we don't need law and order. Well, this is probably what makes me an 'autarchist' rather than an anarchist. I think we need law and order. You see, I am dedicated to the idea of lawful and orderly procedures. And because of that I have to stand against government. Because government doesn't provide either law or order.”

Rampart Institute, (Society for Libertarian Life edition), from 1977 speech, p. 8.
Good Government: Hope or Illusion? (1978)

“If men were basically good, we would not require government; if men were basically evil, we could not afford to grant any man the power of government.”

Rampart Institute, p. 431
The Fundamental of Liberty (1988)

“Economically speaking, all anarchists are socialists, however they may coalesce to the political spectrum. Economically speaking, the libertarian is an individualist, believing in and supporting the concept of private ownership, individual responsibility and self-government.”

Anarchy (1959)

“Government may be intrinsically evil; clearly they operate on the basis of tax predation.”

Source: Nature of Man and His Government (1959), p. 16.

“Government doesn't cure problems. It aggravates them.”

Lift Her Up, Tenderly, Pine Tree Press (December 1, 1976) p.196

“An anarchist is anyone who believes in less government than you do.”

As quoted in "What Is Anarchy?" By Butler Shaffer, Lewrockwell.com (Jan. 13, 2004)

“Government alone, in all man’s inventions, is capable of independent life. Government alone, like Mrs. Shelley’s terrifying creation of the monster born in Frankenstein’s mind, has the power and the ability to turn upon its creators and destroy them.”

Source: Nature of Man and His Government (1959), p. 78

“Formal government can be defined as: a group of men who sell retribution to the inhabitants of a limited geographic area at monopolistic prices.”

Rampart Institute, p. 409.
The Fundamental of Liberty (1988)

“Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.”

Financial Sense http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/steer/2007/0805.html Also quoted in “Covert Operation”, Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, (Aug. 30, 2010)

“When the government uses "divide and conquer," it sows suspicion so that the people who would naturally tend to affiliate will distrust each other. Thus, they don't affiliate. The consequence is that everyone distrusts his neighbor. But everyone trusts the government.”

Rampart Institute, (Society for Libertarian Life edition), from 1977 speech, p. 23.
Good Government: Hope or Illusion? (1978)

“But the thing all members of governments desire to do is to rule their own people and to collect money from them. This is inherent in their natures. So the United Nations, perforce, will aid and abet the member governments in their universal desire to maintain a coercive hold over their individual subjects. Thus, the United Nations is a government of the governments, by the governments, and for the governments. And it cannot and will not restrain their governments,…”

Source: Nature of Man and His Government (1959), p. 45

“Governments, by their nature, are instruments of privilege.”

Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, “Unlimited Government” (Dec. 29, 1961).

“I carry no brief in favor of the criminal. That is why I carry no brief in defense of those in government. Setting a thief [the government] to catch a thief doubles the amount of loot stolen.”

A Way to be Free, the Autobiography of Robert LeFevre (1999) in the “Epilogue”

“And thus we see the government is at once both protector and predator. It is not that governments begin in virtue only to end in sin. Government begins by protecting some against others and ends up protecting itself against everyone. This is the course of history.”

Source: Nature of Man and His Government (1959), p. 73

“Government, when it is examined, turns out to be nothing more nor less than a group of fallible men with the political force to act as though they were infallible.”

"Aggression is Wrong" essay (1963) published by Rampart College.

“If you have a government of good laws and bad men, you will have a bad government. For bad men will not be bound by good laws.”

Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, “Unlimited Government” (Dec. 29, 1961).

“Since I favor total self-control—absolute government of the individual over himself—I believe autarchy more accurately describes, in a positive fashion, the kind of situation I consider most desirable. Some dictionaries define autarchy as a kind of tyranny or despotism, but of necessity it is limited to self-application.”

“Autarchy Versus Anarchy”, Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Winter, 1965): 30–49.