Honorable mention goes to George F. Smith for “By the Way, Free Markets Are Free” :Despite the lofty pretensions of most governments, the fact remains that they, like any other group of men, are nothing more than a collection of individuals. The "rights of a government," like the rights of any other association of men, can be morally no different than the rights of the men who comprise it. All that which is immoral for men acting individually is equally immoral for men acting in association. There is nothing a government can morally do, which individuals by themselves cannot morally do. The group is ethically no different from the individual.
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Like the criminal, the so-called "tax collector" is taking money or property which does not belong to him, for a purpose which his victim does not choose to voluntarily support (for if the victim voluntarily supported the tax collector's cause, there would be no need for him to forcibly seize his money or property). Like the criminal, the tax collector will seize the man's property if he does not surrender it to him, and like the criminal the tax collector (or his agents) will kill the man if he attempts to protect his own property.
It is irrelevant whether a man steals by his own authority or with the sanction of a million others, whether he takes money for himself or for "the poor," or for any other group which did not earn it. Theft consists of taking a man's property against his will, regardless of the beneficiary.
If the individual has an inalienable right to his own life, liberty, and property, then morally his life and property are his own to do with as he pleases. It is just as immoral for a government to attempt to tax his earnings, regulate his business, or draft his sons as it would be for some isolated individual acting on his own authority to do so. The association of men into a group called "government" does not free them from morality or sanction actions otherwise immoral.
It is also irrelevant whether the tax collector's victim has some of his property returned to him in the form of road usage, postal services, police protection, etc., or not. Since it is government, rather than the individual, which is deciding what is to be taken and what is to be given, the individual's control of his own property has still been lost. The return of the tax collector's victim's property in the form of certain governmental services is not trade but theft.
In trade, exchange is conducted by the mutual consent of the individuals who wish to participate in it, according to their own terms. In taxation the individual's property is taken from him without his consent and services may be returned to him according to the government's decrees. For this reason, the only thing which one can call taxation, the foundation of modern governments, is theft.
A free economy is one that is — how to say this? — free. It is free of cronyism, favoritism, handout-ism, protectionism, or anything else that amounts to using the state as a means of living at the expense of others. If paupers or billionaires need help, they're required to get it without picking the pockets of others.
In a free economy the only role for force is the enforcement of property rights. Using force for other means is a violation of the natural freedom of individuals. This is what classical liberals meant by laissez-faire. ...
But don't markets need regulating? Of course. Markets in which the government hasn't turned criminal regulate themselves without violating anyone's rights. If a bank insists on practicing fractional-reserve lending, for example, and finds itself unable to meet depositor demands, it files for bankruptcy, not a bailout. The free bank is thereby discouraged from creating multiple claims to the same dollar. It cannot ask for a loan from its friendly central banker because it doesn't have one.
A central bank such as the federal reserve could not exist in a free market. Central banking requires a monopoly of note issue, and monopolies — as grants of privilege — require the enforcing arm of government. Through bank competition and the threat of runs, a free market limits the tendency of bankers to practice fractional-reserve lending, which is the root of the business cycle.
But since fractional-reserve lending is profitable to bankers and government in the same way that counterfeiting is profitable to counterfeiters, we find ourselves saddled with a central bank to make sure the various costs of expanding the money supply are passed on to the poor and middle class.
The idea that central banks are independent from the governments that gave them life is a bad joke. Through their purchase of government debt obligations, central banks provide a convenient way for politicians to spend wildly on their pet projects — whether it's welfare for seniors or wars overseas — without having to raise taxes.
The hidden tax of bank inflation is perfectly suited to their ends. It gives the impression that government is an endless source of largess, while shifting the blame for crises and everyday higher prices onto governments' favorite whipping boys, speculators and business people. By depreciating the currency, bank inflation quietly takes wealth from our pockets and gives it to those in on the racket.
The very existence of a fiat-paper money like federal reserve notes precludes the possibility of a free market.
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