Quotes by Robert Higgs

About Robert Higgs:

Robert Higgs is an American economic historian and economist combining material from Public Choice, the New Institutional economics, and the Austrian school of economics; and 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie.

Robert Higgs

Many anti-energy groups display little appreciation of the extent to which modern economies depend pervasively on the use of fossil fuels and petrochemical products.

Robert Higgs

Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scor...

Robert Higgs

In regard to the so-called social contract, I have often had occasion to protest that I haven't even seen the contract, much less been asked to consent to it. A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration. I've never receiv...

Robert Higgs

What makes anyone think that government officials are even trying to protect us? A government is not analogous to a hired security guard. Governments do not come into existence as social service organizations or as private firms seeking to please con...

Robert Higgs

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 i...

Robert Higgs

People and their values are almost infinitely diverse, and people will never agree on many elements of social arrangements that might be subjected to uniform rules of governance. Hence, the greater the scope of strictly individual self-determination,...

Robert Higgs

Some doomsayers think the collapse will be triggered by runaway government spending, excessive taxation, oppressive regulation, food shortages, fuel shortages or natural disasters such as deadly pandemics or lethal changes in the world's climate.

Robert Higgs

If you have a private firm and you spend a ton of money to pay employees, but what you produce is a flop, there will be no value to GDP. But government spending all gets counted as contributing to economic growth. That's why in the early days of crea...

Robert Higgs

We need to have a modicum of faith in people's common sense, creativity and will to survive and prosper even in the face of great difficulties and obstacles. If people could keep society running in the aftermath of the Black Death, they could keep it...

Robert Higgs

Austria, Germany and the U.S. South did not disappear as a result of their currencies' ruin. Although many people suffered, most people found a way to survive, life went on, and economic activity eventually resumed after the adoption of a 'reformed' ...

Robert Higgs

Since the end of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, presidents have misled the public about their motives and their intentions in going to war.

Robert Higgs

Author Bio

  • NameRobert Higgs
  • Descriptioneconomist
  • BornFebruary 1, 1944
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionEconomist