Where there is liberty, there are encouragements to labor, because people labor for themselves: and no one can take from them the acquisitions which they make by their labor. There will be the greatest numbers of people, because they find employment and protection; there will be the greatest stocks, because most is to be got, and easiest to be got, and safest when it is got; and those stocks will be always increasing by a new accession of money acquired elsewhere, where there is no security of enjoying it; there people will be able to work cheapest, because less taxes will be put upon their work, and upon the necessaries which must support them whilst they are about it: There people will dare to own their being rich; there will be most people bred up to trade, and trade and traders will be most respected; and there the interest of money will be lower, and the security of possessing it greater.
—Thomas Gordon. Cato’s Letters No. 67, Arts and sciences the effects of civil liberty only, and ever destroyed or oppressed by tyranny, Saturday, February 24, 1722.
Economic growth is caused by millions of individuals working steadily in their quest to better themselves. The best thing the government can do to increase economic growth is to reduce government intervention, strictly adhere to the rule of law, and uphold property rights.
