The Free Market Monument Foundation

"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place."

-- Frederique Bastiat (1801 - 1850) French economist and member of the French assembly

Spontaneous Order

"Every individual... by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. "
-- Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) Scottish philosopher

"Many of the greatest things man has achieved are not the result of consciously directed thought, and still less the product of a deliberately coordinated effort of many individuals, but of a process in which the individual plays a part which he can never fully understand."
-- Friedrich von Hayek (1899 - 1992) Austrian-British Nobel Laureate Economist

"Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone. "
-- Zhuangzi (369 B.C. - 286 B.C.) Chinese Philosopher

"Necessity is the mother of invention."
-- Plato (428 B.C. - 347 B.C.) Greek Philosopher

"We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. "
-- Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911 - 2004) American President

"When individual rights are respected, unregulated competition will maximize economic benefit for society by providing the most goods and services possible at the lowest cost."
-- The Principles of the Free Market