Gustave de Molinari

If there is one well-established truth in political economy, it is this:

— Gustave de Molinari

Everywhere, men resign themselves to the most extreme sacrifices rather than do without government and hence security, without realizing that in so doing, they misjudge their alternatives.

— Gustave de Molinari

In all cases, for all commodities that serve to provide for the tangible or intangible needs of the consumer, it is in the consumer's best interest that labor and trade remain free, because the freedom of labor and of trade have as their necessary and permanent result the maximum reduction of price.

— Gustave de Molinari

The interests of the consumer of any commodity whatsoever should always prevail over the interests of the producer.

— Gustave de Molinari

The production of security should, in the interests of the consumers of this intangible commodity, remain subject to the law of free competition.  …  [N]o government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or to require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity.

— Gustave de Molinari

The production of security should, in the interests of the consumers of this intangible commodity, remain subject to the law of free competition.

— Gustave de Molinari

No government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or to require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity.

— Gustave de Molinari

But why should there be an exception relative to security?  What special reason is there that the production of security cannot be relegated to free competition?  Why should it be subjected to a different principle and organized according to a different system?

— Gustave de Molinari

In the entire world, there is not a single establishment of the security industry that is not based on monopoly or on communism.  […]  Political economy has disapproved equally of monopoly and communism in the various branches of human activity, wherever it has found them.  Is it not then strange and unreasonable that it accepts them in the security industry?

— Gustave de Molinari

Whether communism is partial or complete, political economy is no more tolerant of it than it is of monopoly, of which it is merely an extension.

— Gustave de Molinari

Either communistic production is superior to free production, or it is not.Complete communism or complete liberty: that is the alternative!

— Gustave de Molinari

If one takes the thought into one's head that the leaders of the people do not receive their inspirations directly from providence itself, that they obey purely human impulses, the prestige that surrounds them will disappear.  One will irreverently resist their sovereign decisions, as one resists anything man-made whose utility has not been clearly demonstrated.

— Gustave de Molinari

The moral foundation of authority is neither as solid nor as wide, under a regime of monopoly or of communism, as it could be under a regime of liberty.

— Gustave de Molinari

The moral authority of governors rests, in reality, on the self-interest of the governed.  The latter having a natural tendency to resist anything harmful to their self-interest, unacknowledged authority would continually require the help of physical force.

— Gustave de Molinari