Economic knowledge necessarily leads to liberalism

Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of man's human existence.

Some think that they will exercise power for the general good, but that is what all those with power have believed. Power is evil in itself, regardless of who exercises it.

Government force is derived from the sum of the physical force each citizen could exert which by one citizen himself would be ineffective, but when summed from the force of all the area's citizens indeed composes a power no citizen or group can withstand. That force is then rightly but justly to be used against those who violate the foundation pillars of freedom.

It is the rule of law alone which hinders the rulers from turning themselves into the worst gangsters.

The state is the only institution entitled to apply coercion and compulsion and to inflict harm upon individuals. This tremendous power cannot be abandoned to the discretion of some men, however competent and clever they may deem themselves. It is necessary to restrict its application. This is the task of the laws.

War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings...but no one has for those reasons yet sought to celebrate earthquakes and cholera as stimulators of the productive forces in the general interest.