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Robert Higgs Biography

Robert Higgs (born 1 February 1944) is an American economic historian and economist combining material from Public Choice, the New institutional economics, and the Austrian school of economics; and describes himself as a libertarian anarchist in political and legal theory and public policy. His writings in economics and economic history have most often focused on the causes, means, and effects of government power and growth.

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Robert Higgs Quotes

Without popular fear, no government would endure more than twenty-four hours.

Endure, Four, Government, Popular, Twenties

The legacy of the New Del was, more than anything else, a matter of ideological change. Henceforth, nearly everyone would look to the federal government for solutions to problems great and small, real and imagined, personal as well as social.

Government, Imagined, Legacy, Look, Nearly, Real

This is the true lesson of our history: war, preparation for war, and foreign military interventions have served for the most part not to protect us, as we are constantly told, but rather to sap our economic vitality and undermine our civil and economic liberties.

Military, Part, Preparation, Protect, True, War

Any society that entails the strengthening of the state apparatus by giving it unchecked control over the economy, and re-unites the polity and the economy, is an historical regression. In it there is no more future for the public, or for the freedoms it supported, than there was under feudalism.

Economy, Freedoms, Giving, Historical, Regression

Income inequality has no necessary connection with poverty, the lack of material resources for a decent life, such as adequate food, shelter, and clothing. A society with great income inequality may have no poor people, and a society with no income inequality may have nothing but poor people.

Clothing, Connections, Inequality, People, Poverty

In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy's mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state's mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.

Anarchy, Burden Of Proof, Debate, State, Statists, Undeniably

Nothing has done more to render modern economic theory a sterile and irrelevant exercise in autoeroticism than its practitioners’ obsession with mathematical, general-equilibrium models.

Done, Exercise, Obsession, Render, Sterile

Intervene globally, lose freedom locally.

Freedom, Globally, Intervene, Locally, Lose, Loses

If I had to use a single word to describe what is fundamentally wrong with government today, I would use the word fraud.

Fundamentally, Government, Today, Use, Word

When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie.

Foreign, Lie, Lying, Peace, Presidents, War

But politicians who talk about failed policies are just blowing smoke. Government policies succeed in doing exactly what they are supposed to do: channeling resources bilked from the general public to politically organized and influential interests groups.

Government, Groups, Succeed, Supposed

Once a bureau is created, its staff becomes a tenacious political interest group, well placed to defend its budget and to make a case for expanding its activities.

Activities, Group, Groups, Interest, Political, Staff

The beginning of political wisdom is the realization that despite everything you’ve always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed, it is out to get you.

Everything, Government, Realization, Wisdom, Your Side

H. L. Mencken famously said that 'every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. ' By now, however, I am no longer ashamed, because I do not identify with the government under which I live. Rather, I view it as a criminal organization that without provocation has chosen to make war on my just rights-not only mine, of course, but everyone's. Although this vile enterprise is my problem, because it robs and bullies me relentlessly and without mercy, it is not my responsibility: the nail is not the hammer.

Man, Men, Provocation, Responsibility, War

Inflation is not a benign element in the economy's operation. It is, as it has always been, the most dangerous and destructive form of taxation.

Economy, Element, Elements, Inflation, Taxation

Of course, political leaders are much more ambitious than gangsters. The latter are content to take your money, whereas the former, besides taking far more of your money, have the effrontery to violate your just rights whenever their convenience dictates.

Content, Dictates, Effrontery, Leader, Political, Rights

No doubt, anarchy, once established, might not last forever. But if your house is on fire, the sensible course of action is to put out the fire, even though this extinguishment provides no guarantee that the house will never catch fire again.

Catch, Course, Fire, Guarantees That, House

By adopting programs to distribute substantial amounts of income, a nation guarantees that its government will become more powerful and invasive in other ways.

Government, Guarantees, Guarantees That, Invasive, Powerful

It is a sound interpretive rule. . . that anything that cannot be accomplished except with the aid of threats or the actual exercise of violence against unoffending persons cannot be beneficial to one and all.

Aid, Except, Exercise, Sound, Unoffending, Violence

In U. S. history, war has served as an important diversionary tactic, causing the people at large to shift their attention away from the state's own criminality and toward real or fictitious devils abroad. Wars have therefore proved to be extremely useful in propping up the political class and preserving it from the public resistance and rebellion that might otherwise have arisen.

Away, Class, Diversionary, Real, Shift, War

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