Liberalismo Clássico: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Os liberais brasileiros estão encantados com a escola austríaca, principalmente Mises e Hayek. Mas o tesouro intelectual do liberalismo é muito maior, mais amplo, diverso e rico. Considerem Emerson, que sintetizou da melhor maneira possível alguns dos fundamentos do liberalismo:
Wealth brings with it its own checks and balances. The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws. Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and property, and you need not give alms. Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue, and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands. In a free and just commonwealth, property rushes from the idle and imbecile, to the industrious, brave, and persevering.