“The cumulative development of a medium of exchange on the free market — is the only way money can become established. … government is powerless to create money for the economy; it can only be developed by the processes of the free market.”

—  Murray N. Rothbard , book What Has Government Done to Our Money?

What Has Government Done to Our Money? (1980)

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Murray N. Rothbard photo
Murray N. Rothbard 43
American economist of the Austrian School, libertarian poli… 1926–1995

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“Money as a medium of exchange becomes important when workers are paid in medium of exchange rather than in wage goods directly. Since wage goods constitute the majority of goods produced (particularly in the early stages of development), it is tempting (but misleading) to focus on exchanges and on money as a medium of exchange [like the neo-classicals]. Once capitalist production dominates the economy, money becomes universally important: money operates as a medium of exchange and money hoards provide a measure of security. However, production involves goods and services now in exchange for a promise to pay in the future. That is, money is involved in the production process because production is time-based and involves debt commitments. If one only focuses on the use of money in exchange or as a store of value, one ignores how money creation is inextricably related to time-based production in private property economies.”

L. Randall Wray (1953) American economist

Source: Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies, 1990, p. 10; Cited in Howard Stein. "Theories of institutions and economic reform in Africa." World Development 22.12 (1994): 1833-1849.

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“Money is different from all other commodities: other things being equal, more shoes, or more discoveries of oil or copper benefit society, since they help alleviate natural scarcity. But once a commodity is established as a money on the market, no more money at all is needed. Since the only use of money is for exchange and reckoning, more dollars or pounds or marks in circulation cannot confer a social benefit: they will simply dilute the exchange value of every existing dollar or pound or mark. So it is a great boon that gold or silver are scarce and are costly to increase in supply.
But if government manages to establish paper tickets or bank credit as money, as equivalent to gold grams or ounces, then the government, as dominant money-supplier, becomes free to create money costlessly and at will. As a result, this 'inflation' of the money supply destroys the value of the dollar or pound, drives up prices, cripples economic calculation, and hobbles and seriously damages the workings of the market economy.”

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) American economist of the Austrian School, libertarian political theorist, and historian

"Taking Money Back" http://mises.org/story/2882, in The Freeman (September - October 1995) http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/.

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“Government doesn’t "intrude" on the "free market." It creates the market.”

Robert B. Reich (1946) American political economist

Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few (2015)

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“In the last 21 months, if you've learnt anything, it's that the state is back. If the free market fails, it's not because it's been defeated by state capitalism; the only people that can defeat the free market is us, we're the only ones who can destroy it.”

Ian Bremmer (1969) American political scientist

"The West Should Fear the Growth of State Capitalism," http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7883061/The-West-should-fear-the-growth-of-state-capitalism-Ian-Bremmer.html The Daily Telegraph (July 10, 2010).

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“The entire thrust of neoclassical thought is to argue that the free market economy is an efficient system that will optimize utility for all mankind, if only government will get out of the way. It therefore departs from classical economists such as Adam Smith, who recognized the importance of governments for regulating markets and preventing monopolies.”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

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“Isn't it ironic that the proprietary software developers call us communists? We are the ones who have provided for a free market, where they allow only monopoly.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

“Free Software in Ethics and Practice” talk at CMC MSU, Moscow, Russia, (3 March 2008) Text http://phobos.cs.msu.su/FTP/Stallman/rms-cmc.txt · ogg file http://sbos.in/RMS_Lection.ogg · YouTube http://youtube.com/watch?v=GrJpXJY4Oow
2000s
Context: Isn't it ironic that the proprietary software developers call us communists? We are the ones who have provided for a free market, where they allow only monopoly. … if the users chooses this proprietary software package, he then falls into this monopoly for support … the only way to escape from monopoly is to escape from proprietary software, and that is what the free software movement is all about. We want you to escape and our work is to help you escape. We hope you will escape to the free world. The free world is the new continent in cyberspace that we have built so we can live here in freedom. It's impossible to live in freedom in the old world of cyberspace, where every program has its feudal lord that bullies and mistreats the users. So, to live in freedom we have to build a new continent. Because this is a virtual continent, it has room for everyone, and there are no immigration restrictions. And because there were never indigenous peoples in cyberspace, there is also no issue of taking away their land. So everyone is welcome in the free world, come to the free world, live with us in freedom. The free software movement aims for the liberation of cyberspace and everyone in it.

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“I'm a free-marketeer. I believe in free markets, but… sometimes you have things that look like free markets but aren't because of artificial reasons. I'm not very happy with the current state of what calls itself free market economy in the world because you've got all these grotesque monopolies that are able to game the system in a way that's to their advantage by virtue of their power, and that's not a free market.”

John Perry Barlow (1947–2018) American poet and essayist

Planet JH Weekly interview (2005)
Context: I'm a free-marketeer. I believe in free markets, but... sometimes you have things that look like free markets but aren't because of artificial reasons. I'm not very happy with the current state of what calls itself free market economy in the world because you've got all these grotesque monopolies that are able to game the system in a way that's to their advantage by virtue of their power, and that's not a free market. A real free market has some kind of countervailing influence from the government to keep a monopoly in check, but this government... it's not about free marketing principles, it's about greed pure and simple. And this government wants to assure that the other people that they went to college with get just as rich as they do. This country is going to make Mexico look like Sweden inside of ten years in terms of wealth distribution, because there are no countervailing forces. They've eliminated tax basically for the ultra-rich, they've eliminated any control over monopolies, the greedy have free reign and its just going to be the super rich and the peasants.

Phillip Blond photo

“Without civil intervention the free market tends to monopoly. What we should do is try to restore a truly free market, try to restore a market where there are no barriers to access and people have something other than their labour which they can trade or exchange..”

Phillip Blond (1966) British philosopher

“The current crisis demonstrates not only that all the ideological nonsense about the virtues of the free market is quickly thrown overboard when capitalist interests are threatened, but also that the idea that governments are essentially powerless in the face of the markets is rubbish. Governments are not helpless victims who cannot do anything in the face of “economic reality.””

Tom Bramble Australian trade unionist

In the normal course of events, when we demand things like better welfare, health care or education, governments tell us that it isn’t possible.
Everyone's a socialist in a crisis, 21 March 2020

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“In the context of software development, where you have sequential and complementary developments, patents create an extraordinarily damaging influence on innovation and on the process of developing and bringing new ideas to market.”

Lawrence Lessig (1961) American academic, political activist.

"Code + Law: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig" at O'Reilly P2P (29 January 2001)(29 January 2001)
Context: Our problem is that lawyers have taught us that there is only one kind of economic market for innovation out there and it is this kind of isolated inventor who comes up with an idea and then needs to be protected. That is a good picture of maybe what pharmaceutical industry does. It's a bad picture of what goes on, for example, in the context of software development, in particular. In the context of software development, where you have sequential and complementary developments, patents create an extraordinarily damaging influence on innovation and on the process of developing and bringing new ideas to market. So the particular mistake that lawyers have compounded is the unwillingness to discriminate among different kinds of innovation.
We really need to think quite pragmatically about whether intellectual property is helping or hurting, and if you can't show it's going to help, then there is no reason to issue this government-backed monopoly.

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