The state itself becomes more and more identified with the interests of those who run things than with the interests of the people in general.

The state itself becomes more and more identified with the interests of those who run things than with the interests of the people in general.

[Socialistic] economic planning, regulation, and intervention pave the way to totalitarianism by building a power structure that will inevitably be seized by the most power-hungry and unscrupulous.

Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his absolute mercy. And an authority directing the whole economic system of the country would be the most powerful monopolist conceivable…it would have complete power to decide what we are to be given and on what terms. It would not only decide what commodities and services were to be available and in what quantities; it would be able to direct their distributions between persons to any degree it liked.

I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions.

[The] impersonal process of the market ... can be neither just nor unjust, because the results are not intended or foreseen.

'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.