A Quote by Henry Hazlitt

Government-to-government foreign aid promotes statism, centralized planning, socialism, dependence, pauperization, inefficiency, and waste. It prolongs the poverty it is designed to cure. Voluntary private investment in private enterprise, on the other hand, promotes capitalism, production, independence, and self-reliance.

Henry Hazlitt

Quote Topics

Aid Capitalism Centralized Cure Dependence Designed Enterprise Foreign Foreign Aid Government Hand Independence Inefficiency Investment Other Planning Poverty Private Private Enterprise Production Reliance Self Self-Reliance Socialism Voluntary Waste

Quote Author

Henry Hazlitt
American - Philosopher
November 28, 1894 - July 9, 1993

Government-to-government aid rests on socialistic assumptions and promotes socialism and stagnation, whereas private foreign investment rest on capitalist assumptions and promotes private enterprise and maximum economic growth.

Henry Hazlitt

There is a profound contrast between the effects of foreign aid and of voluntary private investment: foreign aid goes from government to government. It is therefore almost inevitably statist and socialistic.

Henry Hazlitt

The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity—and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.

Richard P. Feynman

Moyo, a Zambia-born economist, asserts that aid is not only ineffective-it's harmful. Her argument packs a strong punch because she was born and raised in Africa. Moyo believes aid money promotes the corruption of governments and the dependence of citizens, and advocates that an investment approach will do more to help reduce poverty than aid ever could.

Amy Lockwood

When caring for your neighbor becomes a compulsory obligation imposed by government instead of voluntary, charity turns to confiscation and freedom to achieve to involuntary servitude. To liberals, compassion seems to be defined by how many people are dependent on the government; to conservatives, it's defined by how many people no longer need help. One promotes dependence, the other freedom, responsibility and achievement.

Star Parker

Socialism needs to pull down wealth; liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private interests, Liberalism would preserve [them] ... by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference. Socialism assails the preeminence of the individual; Liberalism seeks ... to build up a minimum standard for the mass. Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capitalism; Liberalism attacks monopoly.

Winston Churchill

Uganda's budget is 40 percent aid-dependent. Ghana's budget is 50 percent aid-dependent. Even if you cancel the debt, you don't eliminate that aid dependency. This is what I mean by getting to the fundamental root causes of the problem. Government, the state sectors in many African countries need to be slashed so that, you know, you put a greater deal of reliance on the private sector. The private sector is the engine of growth. Africa's economy needs to grow but they're not growing.

George W. Bush

The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production.

Benito Mussolini

In almost every enterprise, government has provided business with opportunities for private gain at public expense. Government nurtures private capital accumulation through a process of subsidies, supports, and deficit spending and an increasingly inequitable tax system.

Michael Parenti

Socialism, technically, is when the government owns the means of production. And they don't yet. I mean they own a couple car companies and they're mucking that up. But fascism is where the private sector still owns businesses but the government runs it.

Rush Limbaugh

The idea that government can instruct private enterprise on how to eliminate waste is preposterous.

James Cook

The quickest and surest way to production, prosperity, and economic growth is through private enterprise. The best way for governments to encourage private enterprise is to establish justice, to enforce contracts, to insure domestic peace and tranquility, to protect private property, and to secure the blessings of liberty including economic liberty - which means to stop putting obstacles in the way of private enterprise.

Henry Hazlitt

Capitalism means free enterprise, sovereignty of the consumers in economic matters, and sovereignty of the voters in political matters. Socialism means full government control of every sphere of the individuals life and the unrestricted supremacy of the government in its capacity as central board of production management.

Ludwig von Mises

In World War II, the government went to the private sector. The government asked the private sector for help in doing things that the government could not do. The private sector complied. That is what I am suggesting.

Carly Fiorina

I believe that "government", as we know it today, should pull out of most things except for law enforcement and justice, national defense and foreign policy, and let the private sector, a "Grameenized private sector", a social-consciousness-driven private sector, take over their other functions.