Tony Benn Quotes

Our economic freedom is founded on individual property rights; government should never be permitted to take those away.

The difference between a contemporary liberal and a socialist is that to a liberal the most beautiful word in the English language is 'forbidden', whereas to a socialist the most beautiful word is 'compulsory'.

America faces a fundamental choice: either the blessings of liberty or the servitude of liberalism. In the political struggle for survival, one or the other is headed for extinction.

If conservatives really believed in individual liberty, as they endlessly claim — and if they used both halves of their brains — then they'd be libertarians. Instead, they sabotage themselves, and their cause, by constantly generating one spurious reason after another to deprive other people of their freedom.

... statism systematically violates the rights of individuals and is, therefore, immoral. Because it suppresses the mind and violates men's rights, it thereby causes abysmal poverty and is utterly impractical.

By definition, the moment one crosses from center to left, one accepts more government control of people's lives. Therefore, the further left society moves, the more there is government control over its citizens' lives. It is astonishing that this obvious fact is not universally acknowledged and that the Left has somehow successfully portrayed itself as preoccupied with personal liberty.

Government is a guarantor of liberty and is compatible with liberty only if its range is adequately restricted to the preservation of what is called economic freedom.

It is no accident that wherever the State ha taken economic decision away from the citizen, it has deprived him of his other liberties as well.

The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that.

The only things government can do are regulate and redistribute, prohibit and penalize, confiscate and command. Are these the things that liberty is made of? Somebody else's money and an endless list of Thou Shalt Nots?

I think almost every economist would agree that government gets itself in trouble when it tries to interfere with voluntary behavior.

I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom.

The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.

I think that there is absolutely no free market in modern industrial states.

The real boneheads are the libertarians.

We stand up and proudly proclaim that Washington is not our caretaker and we reject a state, in Margaret Thatcher's words, a state that takes too much from us to do too much for us.

America gains most when individuals have great freedom to pursue personal goals without undue government interference.

I think Tierney is also more libertarian than he is conservative in the conventional sense.

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

I'm a libertarian. It's a terrible word.

Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

If you feel the government should leave you alone, you're a Republican. If you think the job of the government is to go push people around and take things for you, then you're a Democrat.

But there is no obvious reason for holding that some normal adults are entitled to make choices for other normal adults, as paternalists of both left and right believe.

Well, I'm a libertarian conservative, so I believe in limited government/maximum individual freedom.

Political freedom can be inimical to economic freedom.