The big difference between big government and big business is big government can take you to jail, or shoot you if you don’t comply. —Thomas Massie
If capitalism had never existed, any honest humanitarian should have been struggling to invent it. But when you see men struggling to evade its existence, to misrepresent its nature, and to destroy its last remnants—you may be sure that whatever their motives, love for man is not one of them. —Ayn Rand
If an employer has an opening that pays $50,000 in salary, and the Christian applicant will bring in $51,000 in extra revenue to the firm while the Muslim applicant will bring in $55,000, then to discriminate against the creed of the latter will cost the employer $4,000 in potential profits. Discrimination is automatically “fined” in the free market. — Bob Murphy
The evils of capitalism are simply the evils of social trends and the evils and the misdeeds of human beings. We are going to misbehave; there will be evil in the world. Capitalism is, by far, the best system for channeling human wishes and incentives into the best outcomes. —Gene Epstein
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. —Smedley Butler, Major General, United States Marine Corps
You can’t strangle an industry with regulations, mandates, red tape, bureaucracy, and government control and then blame capitalism when it sucks. —Hannah Cox
I viewed the marketplace as a cruel place, where you need intervention by government to protect people. But after watching the regulators work, I have come to believe that markets are magical, and the best protectors of the consumer. It is my job to explain the beauties of the free market. —John Stossel
The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends. —Ludwig von Mises
All people, however fanatical they may be in their zeal to disparage and to fight capitalism, implicitly pay homage to it by passionately clamoring for the products it turns out. —Ludwig von Mises
The radical-revolutionary position is a lonely one. It is feared and hated, by both Right and Left — although both Right and Left must borrow from it to survive. The radical-revolutionary position is libertarianism, and its socioeconomic form is laissez-faire capitalism. —Karl Hess