Murray Rothbard on human uniqueness and human progress

One of the most important facts about human nature is the great diversity among individuals... Each person is unique in his tastes, interests, abilities, and chosen activities. Animal activities, routine and guided by instinct, tend to be uniform and alike. But human individuals, despite similarities in ends and values, despite mutual influences, tend to express the unique imprint of the individual’s own personality. The development of individual variety tends to be both the cause and the effect of the progress of civilization. As civilization progresses, there is more opportunity for the development of a person’s reasoning and tastes in a growing variety of fields. And from such opportunities come the advancement of knowledge and progress which in turn add to the society’s civilization. Furthermore, it is the variety of individual interests and talents that permits the growth of specialization and division of labor, on which civilized economies depend.

~ Murray Rothbard, "Human Diversity and Individual Instruction," Education, Free and Compulsory

Lew Rockwell on the division of labor

A libertarian is perfectly at peace with the universal phenomenon of human difference. He does not wish it away, he does not shake his fist at it, he does not pretend not to notice it. It affords him another opportunity to marvel at a miracle of the market: its ability to incorporate just about anyone into the division of labor.

Indeed the division of labor is based on human difference. Each of us finds that niche that suits our natural talents best, and by specializing in that particular thing we can most effectively serve our fellow man. Our fellow man, likewise, specializes in what he is best suited for, and we in turn benefit from the fruits of his specialized knowledge and skill.

~ Lew Rockwell, "The Menace of Egalitarianism," speech given to Fort Worth Mises Circle, October 3, 2015

Lew Rockwell on the value of inequality (human differences)

A libertarian is perfectly at peace with the universal phenomenon of human difference. He does not wish it away, he does not shake his fist at it, he does not pretend not to notice it. It affords him another opportunity to marvel at a miracle of the market: its ability to incorporate just about anyone into the division of labor.

Indeed the division of labor is based on human difference. Each of us finds that niche that suits our natural talents best, and by specializing in that particular thing we can most effectively serve our fellow man. Our fellow man, likewise, specializes in what he is best suited for, and we in turn benefit from the fruits of his specialized knowledge and skill.

~ Lew Rockwell, "The Menace of Egalitarianism," speech given at Dallas-Ft. Worth Mises Circle, October 3, 2015

Friedrich Hayek on how uniqueness allows for specialization and "a more successful use of the earth's resources"

It is... not simply more men, but more different men, which brings an increase in productivity.  Men have become powerful because they have become so different: new possibilities or specialisation - depending not so much on any increase in individual intelligence but on growing differentiation of individuals - provide the basis for a more successful use of the earth's resources.

~ Friedrich Hayek, The Fatal Conceit, Chapter 8: "The Extended Order and Population Growth"

Friedrich Hayek on the dispersion of knowledge, variety and the division of labor

The knowledge that plays probably the chief role in this differentiation [Wilhelm von Humboldt's "human development in its richest form"] - far from being the knowledge of any one human being, let alone that of a directing superbrain - arises in a process of experimental interaction of widely dispersed, different and even conflicting beliefs of millions of communicating individuals.  The increasing intelligence shown by man, accordingly, due not so much to increases in the several knowledge of individuals but to procedures for combining different and scattered information which, in turn, generate order and enhance productivity.

Thus the development of variety is an important part of cultural evolution, and a great part of an individual's value to others is due to his differences from them.  The importance and value of order will grow with the variety of the elements, while greater order in turn enhances the value of variety, and thus the order of human cooperation becomes indefinitely extensible.  If things were otherwise, if for example all men were alike and could not make themselves different from one another, there would be little point in division of labour..., little advantage from coordinating efforts, and little prospect of creating order of any power or magnitude.

~ Friedrich Hayek, The Fatal Conceit, Chapter 5: "The Fatal Conceit"

Kevin Duffy on the coronavirus, division of labor and civilization

Before the Industrial Revolution, men routinely enslaved each other and went to war over limited resources. Today, civilization is supported by cooperation and the division of labor (free trade). If you destroy that - which is EXACTLY what governments around the world are doing in response to the coronavirus - you destroy civilization itself.

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook post, March 22, 2020

Murray Rothbard on our own uniqueness and the case for a free society

If men were like ants, there would be no interest in human freedom.  If individual men, like ants, were uniform, interchangeable, devoid of specific personality traits of their own, then who would care whether they were free or not?  Who, indeed, would care if they lived or died?  The glory of the human race is the uniqueness of each individual, the fact that every person, though similar in many ways to others, possesses a completely individuated personality of his own.  It is the fact of each person's uniqueness — the fact that no two people can be wholly interchangeable — that makes each and every man irreplaceable and that makes us care whether he lives or dies, whether he is happy or oppressed.  And, finally, it is the fact that these unique personalities need freedom for their full development that constitutes one of the major arguments for a free society.

~ Murray Rothbard, "Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor," August 1970

Kevin Duffy: The long-term case for optimism and power of ideas

There's a lot going on right now that's really positive. Just as our grandparents lived through the transportation revolution, we're currently living through the computing revolution. When you expand the division of labor, good things happen, and the long-term trend is toward greater division of labor throughout the global economy.

Positive change comes from good ideas percolating up, and the bad ideas failing. Right now, central bankers are treated like rock stars, but we'd be much better off if they were discredited and the economy broke its addiction to cheap credit. Never underestimate human resiliency.

~ Kevin Duffy, Bearing Asset Management, "Setting a Course With Bearing Asset Management," The Motley Fool, April 11, 2007, by Matt Koppenheffer