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Capitalists Have The Tendency To Move Toward Those Countries In Which There Is Plenty Of Labor Available And At Which Labor Is Reasonable. And By The Fact That They Bring Capital Into These Countries, They Bring About A Trend Toward Higher Wage Rates.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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Capitalists Have The Tendency

Ludwig Von Mises

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Capitalists Have The Tendency To Move Toward Those Countries In Which There Is Plenty Of Labor Available And At Which Labor Is Reasonable. And By The Fact That They Bring Capital Into These Countries, They Bring About A Trend Toward Higher Wage Rates.

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All This Talk: The State Should Do This Or That, Ultimately Means: The Police Should Force Consumers To Behave Otherwise Than They Would Behave Spontaneously.

There Is But One Means Available To Improve The Material Conditions Of Mankind: To Accelerate The Growth Of Capital Accumulated As Against The Growth In Population. The Greater The Amount Of Capital Invested Per Head Of The Worker, The More And Better Goods Can Be Produced And Consumed. This Is What Capitalism, The Much Abused Profit System, Has Brought About And Brings About Daily Anew. Yet, Most Present-day Governments And Political Parties Are Eager To Destroy This System.

There Is No Other Planning For Freedom And General Welfare Than To Let The Market System Work.

General Welfare

In Spite Of The Anticapitalistic Policies Of All Governments And Of Almost All Political Parties, The Capitalist Mode Of Production

History Makes One Wise, But Not Competent To Solve Concrete Problems.

The Word "capitalism" Expresses, For Our Age, The Sum Of All Evil. Even The Opponents Of Socialism Are Dominated By Socialist Ideas.

Only To Bureaucrats Can The Idea Occur That Establishing New Offices, Promulgating New Decrees, And Increasing The Number Of Government Employees Alone Can Be Described As Positive And Beneficial Measures.

Marx And Engels Openly Declared That The Progressive Income Tax And The Death Tax Are 'economically Untenable' And That They Advocated Them Only Because 'they Necessitate Further Inroads' Upon The Capitalist System And Are 'unavoidable' As A Means Of Bringing About Socialism.

The Capitalist System, In Spite Of All Obstacles Put In Its Way By Governments And Politicians, Has Raised The Standard Of Living Of The Masses In An Unprecedented Way.

The [liberals] Consider Profits As Objectionable. The Very Existence Of Profits Is In Their Eyes A Proof That Wage Rates Could Be Raised Without Harm To Anybody. They Speak Of Profit Without Dealing With Loss. Profit And Loss Are The Instruments By Means Of Which The Consumers Keep A Tight Rein On All Business Activities. A Profitable Enterprise Tends To Expand; An Unprofitable One Tends To Shrink. The Elimination Of Profit Renders Production Rigid And Abolishes The Consumer's Control.

Economics Is Not About Things And Tangible Material Objects; It Is About Men, Their Meanings And Actions.

In Life Everything Is Continually In Flux.

There Is No Means By Which Anyone Can Evade His Personal Responsibility. Whoever Neglects To Examine To The Best Of His Abilities All The Problems Involved Voluntarily Surrenders His Birthright To A Selfappointed Elite Of Supermen. In Such Vital Matters Blind Reliance Upon 'experts' And Uncritical Acceptance Of Popular Catchwords And Prejudices Is Tantamount To The Abandonment Of Self-determination And To Yielding To Other People's Domination. As Conditions Are Today, Nothing Can Be More Important To Every Intelligent Man Than Economics. His Own Fate And That Of His Progeny Are At Stake.

What Those People Who Ask For Equality Have In Mind Is Always An Increase In Their Own Power To Consume.

Freedom And Liberty Always Mean Freedom From Police Interference.

The Illusiveness Of This Concept Of National Income Is To Be Seen In Its Dependence On Changes In The Purchasing Power Of The Monetary Unit. The More Inflation Progresses, The Higher Rises The National Income.

Inflation Has Always Been An Important Resource Of Policies Of War And Revolution And Why We Also Find It In The Service Of Socialism.

The Consumers Are Merciless. They Never Buy In Order To Benefit A Less Efficient Producer And To Protect Him Against The Consequences Of His Failure To Manage Better. They Want To Be Served As Well As Possible. And The Working Of The Capitalist System Forces The Entrepreneur To Obey The Orders Issued By The Consumers.

War Can Really Cause No Economic Boom, At Least Not Directly, Since An Increase In Wealth Never Does Result From Destruction Of Goods.

Inequality Of Wealth And Incomes Is An Essential Feature Of The Market Economy. It Is The Implement That Makes The Consumers Supreme In Giving Them The Power To Force All Those Engaged In Production To Comply With Their Orders. It Forces All Those Engaged In Production To The Utmost Exertion In The Service Of The Consumers. It Makes Competition Work. He Who Best Serves The Consumers Profits Most And Accumulates Riches.

Liberty Is Always Freedom From The Government.

The Worship Of The State Is The Worship Of Force. There Is No More Dangerous Menace To Civilization Than A Government Of Incompetent, Corrupt, Or Vile Men. The Worst Evils Which Mankind Ever Had To Endure Were Inflicted By Governments.

What Pushes The Masses Into The Camp Of Socialism Is, Even More Than The Illusion That Socialism Will Make Them Richer, The Expectation That It Will Curb All Those Who Are Better Than They Themselves Are.

Whoever Wants Peace Among Nations Must Seek To Limit The State And Its Influence Most Strictly.

Scientific Research Sooner Or Later, But Inevitably, Encounters Something Ultimately Given That It Cannot Trace Back To Something Else Of Which It Would Appear As The Regular Or Necessary Derivative. Scientific Progress Consists In Pushing Further Back This Ultimately Given.

So Far As Feminism Seeks To Adjust The Legal Position Of Woman To That Of Man, So Far As It Seeks To Offer Her Legal And Economic Freedom To Develop And Act In Accordance With Her Inclinations, Desires, And Economic Circumstances—so Far It Is Nothing More Than A Branch Of The Great Liberal Movement, Which Advocates Peaceful And Free Evolution.

In Order To Succeed In Business A Man Does Not Need A Degree From A School Of Business Administration. These Schools Train The Subalterns For Routine Jobs. They Certainly Do Not Train Entrepreneurs.

What Matters Is Not The Allocation Of Portions Out Of A Fund Presented To Man By Nature. The Problem Is Rather To Further Those Social Institutions Which Enable People To Continue And To Enlarge The Production Of All Those Things Which They Need.

Historical Knowledge Is Indispensable For Those Who Want To Build A Better World

Historical Knowledge

He Who Disdains The Fall In Infant Mortality And The Gradual Disappearance Of Famines And Plagues May Cast The First Stone Upon The Materialism Of The Economists.

The Unpopularity Of Economics Is The Result Of Its Analysis Of The Effects Of Privileges. It Is Impossible To Invalidate The Economists Demonstration That All Privileges Hurt The Interests Of The Rest Of The Nation Or At Least A Great Part Of It.

The Philosophy Of Protectionism Is A Philosophy Of War.

The Only Source From Which An Entrepreneurs Profits Stem Is His Ability To Anticipate Better Than Other People The Future Demand Of The Consumers.

What Impels Every Man To The Utmost Exertion In The Service Of His Fellow Man. Is, In The Market Not Compulsion On The Part Of Gendarmes, Hangmen And Penal Courts, It Is Self Interest.

Wars Of Aggression Are Popular Nowadays With Those Nations Convinced That Only Victory And Conquest Could Improve Their Material Well-being.

Inflation Is An Increase In The Quantity Of Money Without A Corresponding Increase In The Demand For Money, I.e., For Cash Holdings.

In Talking About Equality And Asking Vehemently For Its Realization, Nobody Advocates A Curtailment Of His Own Present Income.

Scientific Criticism Has No Nobler Task Than To Shatter False Beliefs.

No One Should Expect That Any Logical Argument Or Any Experience Could Ever Shake The Almost Religious Fervor Of Those Who Believe In Salvation Through Spending And Credit Expansion.

Logical Arguments

American Authors Or Scientists Are Prone To Consider The Wealthy Businessman As A Barbarian, As A Man Exclusively Intent Upon Making Money.

The Desire For An Increase Of Wealth Can Be Satisfied Through Exchange, Which Is The Only Method Possible In A Capitalist Economy, Or By Violence And Petition As In A Militarist Society, Where The Strong Acquire By Force, The Weak By Petitioning.

Capitalist Economy

Education Rears Disciples, Imitators, And Routinists, Not Pioneers Of New Ideas And Creative Geniuses. The Schools Are Not Nurseries Of Progress And Improvement, But Conservatories Of Tradition And Unvarying Modes Of Thought.

The Uncouth Hordes Of Common Men Are Not Fit To Recognize Duly The Merits Of Those Who Eclipse Their Own Wretchedness.

Both Force And Money Are Impotent Against Ideas.

Government Is A Guarantor Of Liberty And Is Compatible With Liberty Only If Its Range Is Adequately Restricted To The Preservation Of What Is Called Economic Freedom.

Society Is Best Served When The Means Of Production Are In The Possession Of Those Who Know How To Use Them Best.

The Financial History Of The Last Century Shows A Steady Increase In The Amount Of Public Indebtedness. Nobody Believes That The States Will Eternally Drag The Burden Of These Interest Payments. It Is Obvious That Sooner Or Later All These Debts Will Be Liquidated In Some Way Or Other, But Certainly Not By Payment Of Interest And Principal According To The Terms Of The Contract.

People Do Not Cooperate Under The Division Of Labor Because They Love Or Should Love One Another. They Cooperate Because This Best Serves Their Own Interests. Neither Love Nor Charity Nor Any Other Sympathetic Sentiments But Rightly Understood Selfishness Is What Originally Impelled Man To Adjust Himself To The Requirements Of Society, To Respect The Rights And Freedoms Of His Fellow Men And To Substitute Peaceful Collaboration For Enmity And Conflict.

Division Of Labor

In The Bureaucratic Machine Of Socialism The Way Toward Promotion Is Not Achievement But The Favor Of The Superiors.

What Makes Small Business Develop Into Big Business Is Not Spending, But Saving And Capital Accumulation.

The Program Of Liberalism If Condensed Into A Single Word, Would Have To Read: Property, That Is, Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production.

The Essential Feature Of Government Is The Enforcement Of Its Decrees By Beating, Killing, And Imprisoning.

Inflation Is The True Opium Of The People And It Is Administered To Them By Anticapitalist Governments And Parties.

There Is No Kind Of Freedom And Liberty Other Than The Kind Which The Market Economy Brings About.

Everything Brought Forward In Favor Of Socialism During The Last Hundred Years, In Thousands Of Writings And Speeches, All The Blood Which Has Been Spilt By The Supporters Of Socialism, Cannot Make Socialism Workable.

Those Who Are Asking For More Government Interference Are Asking Ultimately For More Compulsion And Less Freedom.

The Policy Of Letting The Free Market Determine The Height Of Wage Rates Is The Only Reasonable And Successful Full-employment Policy.

Socialism Is Not In The Least What It Pretends To Be. It Is Not The Pioneer Of A Better And Finer World, But The Spoiler Of What Thousands Of Years Of Civilization Have Created. It Does Not Build, It Destroys. For Destruction Is The Essence Of It. It Produces Nothing, It Only Consumes What The Social Order Based On Private Ownership In The Means Of Production Has Created.

What Counts Alone Is The Innovator, The Dissenter, The Harbinger Of Things Unheard Of, The Man Who Rejects The Traditional Standards And Aims At Substituting New Values And Ideas For Old Ones.

Government Spending Cannot Create Additional Jobs. If The Government Provides The Funds Required By Taxing The Citizens Or By Borrowing From The Public, It Abolishes On The One Hand As Many Jobs As It Creates On The Other.

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.

Credit Expansion Is The Governments' Foremost Tool In Their Struggle Against The Market Economy. In Their Hands It Is The Magic Wand Designed To Conjure Away The Scarcity Of Capital Goods, To Lower The Rate Of Interest Or To Abolish It Altogether, To Finance Lavish Government Spending, To Expropriate The Capitalists, To Contrive Everlasting Booms, And To Make Everybody Prosperous.

The Situation Of Having To Belong To A State To Which One Does Not Wish Is No Less Onerous If It Is The Result Of An Election Than If One Must Endure It As The Consequence Of A Military Conquest.

Perhaps There Are Somewhere In The Infinite Universe Beings Whose Minds Outrank Our Minds To The Same Extent As Our Minds Surpass Those Of The Insects. Perhaps There Will Once Somewhere Live Beings Who Will Look Upon Us With The Same Condescension As We Look Upon Amoebae.

True, Man Cannot Escape Death. But For The Present He Is Alive; And Life, Not Death, Takes Hold Of Him... It Is Mans Innate Nature That He Seeks To Preserve And To Strengthen His Life, That He Is Discontented And Aims At Removing Uneasiness, That He Is In Search Of What May Be Called Happiness.

Those Politicians, Professors And Union Bosses Who Curse Big Business Are Fighting For A Lower Standard Of Living.

The Direction Of All Economic Affairs Is In The Market Society A Task Of The Entrepreneurs. Theirs Is The Control Of Production. They Are At The Helm And Steer The Ship. A Superficial Observer Would Believe That They Are Supreme. But They Are Not. They Are Bound To Obey Unconditionally The Captain's Orders.

Monetary Calculation Is Not The Calculation, And Certainly Not The Measurement, Of Value. Its Basis Is The Comparison Of The More Important And The Less Important. It Is An Ordering According To Rank, An Act Of Grading (cuhel), And Not An Act Of Measuring. It Was A Mistake To Search For A Measure Of The Value Of Goods. In The Last Analysis, Economic Calculation Does Not Rest On The Measurement Of Values, But On Their Arrangement In An Order Of Rank.

Some Experts Have Declared That It Is Necessary To Tax The People Until It Hurts. I Disagree With These Sadists.

The Consumers Suffer When The Laws Of The Country Prevent The Most Efficient Entrepreneurs From Expanding The Sphere Of Their Activities. What Made Some Enterprises Develop Into "big Business" Was Precisely Their Success In Filling Best The Demand Of The Masses.

The Usual Terminology Of Political Language Is Stupid. What Is 'left' And What Is 'right'? Why Should Hitler Be 'right' And Stalin, His Temporary Friend, Be 'left'? Who Is 'reactionary' And Who Is 'progressive'? Reaction Against An Unwise Policy Is Not To Be Condemned. And Progress Towards Chaos Is Not To Be Commended.

Political Language

Economic Control Is Not Merely Control Of A Sector Of Human Life That Can Be Separated From The Rest; It Is The Control Of The Means For All Our Ends.

My Theories Explain, But Cannot Slow The Decline Of A Great Civilization. I Set Out To Be A Reformer, But Only Became The Historian Of Decline.

Not Mythical Material Productive Forces, But Reason And Ideas Determine The Course Of Human Affairs. What Is Needed To Stop The Trend Toward Socialism And Despotism Is Common-sense And Moral Courage.

Nobody Can Be At The Same Time A Correct Bureaucrat And An Innovator

Those Who Disagree With The Dictator's Plan Have No Other Means To Carry On Than To Defeat The Despot By Force Of Arms.

You Call It A 'loophole' When The Government Still Allows You Some Freedom.

Aggressors Cannot Wage Total War Without Introducing Socialism.

Behaviorism Proposes To Study Human Behavior According To The Methods Developed By Animal And Infant Psychology. It Seeks To Investigate Reflexes And Instincts, Automatisms And Unconscious Reactions. But It Has Told Us Nothing About The Reflexes That Have Built Cathedrals, Railroads, And Fortresses, The Instincts That Have Produced Philosophies, Poems, And Legal Systems, The Automatisms That Have Resulted In The Growth And Decline Of Empires, The Unconscious Reactions That Are Splitting Atoms.

The Productivity Of Social Cooperation Surpasses In Every Respect The Sum Total Of The Production Of Isolated Individuals.

Innovation Is The Whim Of An Elite Before It Becomes A Need Of The Public.

In The Market Economy The Worker Sells His Services As Other People Sell Their Commodities. The Employer Is Not The Employee's Lord. He Is Simply The Buyer Of Services Which He Must Purchase At Their Market Price.

Capitalism Gave The World What It Needed, A Higher Standard Of Living For A Steadily Increasing Number Of People.

Innovators And Creative Geniuses Cannot Be Reared In Schools. They Are Precisely The Men Who Defy What The School Has Taught Them.

There Is No Such Thing As A Just And Fair Method Of Exercising The Tremendous Power That Interventionism Puts Into The Hands Of The Legislature And The Executive.

People Do Not Cooperate Under The Division Of Labor Because They Love Or Should Love One Another. They Cooperate Because This Best Serves Their Own Interests.

Division Of Labor

Love One Another

Daily Experience Proves Clearly To Everybody But The Most Bigoted Fanatics Of Socialism That Governmental Management Is Inefficient And Wasteful.

Every Man Aims At Avoiding What Causes Him Pain; The Activities Of Government Ultimately Consist In The Infliction Of Pain. All Great Achievements Of Mankind Were The Product Of A Spontaneous Effort On The Part Of Individuals; Government Substitutes Coercion For Voluntary Action.

The Characteristic Feature Of A Free Society Is That It Can Function In Spite Of The Fact That Its Members Disagree In Many Judgments Of Value. Freedom Really Means The Freedom To Make Mistakes.

The Market Is Not A Place, A Thing, Or A Collective Entity. The Market Is A Process, Actuated By The Interplay Of The Actions Of The Various Individuals Cooperating Under The Division Of Labor.

Under A Socialist Mode Of Production All Personal Incentives Which Selfishness Provides Under Capitalism Are Removed, And A Premium Is Put Upon Laziness And Negligence. Whereas In A Capitalist Society Selfishness Incites Everyone To The Utmost Diligence, In A Socialist Society It Makes For Inertia And Laxity.

Fascism Was An Emergency Makeshift. To View It As Something More Would Be A Fatal Error.

All Those Evils Which The [liberals] Interpret As Evidence Of The Failure Of Capitalism, Are The Necessary Outcome Of Interference With The Market.

In The Long Run The Ideas Of The Majority, However Detrimental They May Be, Will Carry On. The Future Of Mankind Depends On The Ability Of The Elite To Influence Public Opinion In The Right Direction.

A New Type Of Superstition Has Got Hold Of People's Minds, The Worship Of The State.

To The Masses, The Catchwords Of Socialism Sound So Enticing... So They Will Continue To Work For Socialism, Helping Thereby To Bring About The Inevitable Decline Of The Civilization Which The Nations Of The West Have Taken Thousands Of Years To Build Up.

In Relation To The Immense Sacrifices That The State Demands Of The Individual Through The Blood Tax, It Seems Rather Incidental Whether It Compensates The Soldier More Or Less Abundantly For The Loss Of Time That He Suffers From His Military-service Obligation.

Nothing Is More Calculated To Make A Demagogue Popular Than A Constantly Reiterated Demand For Heavy Taxes On The Rich. Capital Levies And High Income Taxes On The Larger Incomes Are Extraordinarily Popular With The Masses, Who Do Not Have To Pay Them.

It Is True That Some Secluded Intellectuals In Their Esoteric Circles Talk Differently. They Proclaim The Priority Of What They Call Eternal Absolute Values And Feign In Their Declamations—not In Their Personal Conduct—a Disdain Of Things Secular And Transitory. But The Public Ignores Such Utterances. The Main Goal Of Present-day Political Action Is To Secure For The Respective Pressure Group Memberships The Highest Material Well-being. The Only Way For A Leader To Succeed Is To Instill In People The Conviction That His Program Best Serves The Attainment Of This Goal.

Pressure Groups

The Comparatively Greater Prosperity Of The United States Is An Outcome Of The Fact That The New Deal Did Not Come In 1900 Or 1910, But Only In 1933.

The System That Would Stand Midway Between Capitalism And Socialism.

Capitalism And Socialism

Peace And Not War Is The Father Of All Things.

The Concept Of A 'just' Or 'fair' Price Is Devoid Of Any Scientific Meaning; It Is A Disguise For Wishes, A Striving For A State Of Affairs Different From Reality.

Liberalism Must Be Intolerant Of Every Sort Of Intolerance.

Government Is Essentially The Negation Of Liberty.

Government Cannot Make Man Richer, But It Can Make Him Poorer.

Anarchism Misunderstands The Real Nature Of Man. It Would Be Practicable Only In A World Of Angels And Saints

Thus, The Isolated Interference With One Or A Few Prices Of Consumer Goods Always Bring About Effects-and This Is Important To Realize-which Are Even Less Satisfactory Than The Conditions That Prevailed Before.

The Recurrence Of Periods Of Depression And Mass Unemployment Has Discredited Capitalism In The Opinion Of Injudicious People. Yet These Events Are Not The Outcome Of The Operation Of The Free Market. They Are On The Contrary The Result Of Well-intentioned But Ill-advised Government Interference With The Market.

Taxing Profits Is Tantamount To Taxing Success.

The Characteristic Feature Of Capitalism That Distinguishes It From Pre-capitalist Methods Of Production Was Its New Principle Of Marketing. Capitalism Is Not Simply Mass Production, But Mass Production To Satisfy The Needs Of The Masses.

The Masses Do Not Like Those Who Surpass Them In Any Regard. The Average Man Envies And Hates Those Who Are Different.

In Public Administration There Is No Connection Between Revenue And Expenditure.

The Avowed Aim Of All Utopian Movements Is To Put An End To History And To Establish A Final And Permanent Calm.

Human Civilization Is Not Something Achieved Against Nature; It Is Rather The Outcome Of The Working Of The Innate Qualities Of Man.

The People Who Think That The Power Of Big Business Is Enormous Are Mistaken

Reason Is The Main Resource Of Man In His Struggle For Survival.

The Reichswirtschaftsministerium ('reich Ministry Of Economic Affairs') Tells The Shop Managers What And How To Produce, At What Prices And From Whom To Buy, At What Prices And To Whom To Sell. It Assigns Every Worker To His Job And Fixes His Wages. It Decrees To Whom And On What Terms The Capitalists Must Entrust Their Funds. Market Exchange Is Merely A Sham.

Liberty Is Meaningless If It Is Only The Liberty To Agree With Those In Power.

The Greater Productivity Of Work Under The Division Of Labor Is A Unifying Influence. It Leads Men To Regard Each Other As Comrades In A Joint Struggle For Welfare, Rather Than As Competitors In A Struggle For Existence. It Makes Friends Out Of Enemies, Peace Out Of War, Society Out Of Individuals.

It Is Labor Alone That Is Productive: It Creates Wealth And Therewith Lays The Outward Foundations For The Inward Flowering Of Man.

Socialism Is The Renunciation Of Rational Economy.

The Interventionists Do Not Approach The Study Of Economic Matters With Scientific Disinterestedness. Most Of Them Are Driven By An Envious Resentment Against Those Whose Incomes Are Larger Than Their Own. This Bias Makes It Impossible For Them To See Things As They Really Are. For Them The Main Thing Is Not To Improve The Conditions Of The Masses, But To Harm The Entrepreneurs And Capitalists Even If This Policy Victimizes The Immense Majority Of The People.

The Methods Of The Natural Sciences Cannot Be Applied To Human Behavior Because This Behaviorlacks The Peculiarity That Characterizes Events In The Field Of The Natural Sciences, Viz., Regularity.

The Class Of Those Who Have The Ability To Think Their Own Thoughts Is Separated By An Unbridgeable Gulf From The Class Of Those Who Cannot.

Is Still Fulfilling Its Social Function In Supplying The Consumers With More, Better And Cheaper Goods.

Government Is An Apparatus Of Compulsion And Coercion.

Economically Considered, War And Revolution Are Always Bad Business.

When We Call A Capitalist Society A Consumers Democracy We Mean That The Power To Dispose Of The Means Of Production, Which Belongs To The Entrepreneurs And Capitalists, Can Only Be Acquired By Means Of The Consumers Ballot, Held Daily In The Marketplace.

A Higher Standard Of Living Also Brings About A Higher Standard Of Culture And Civilization.

The Alcoholic And The Drug Addict Harm Only Themselves By Their Behavior; The Person Who Violates The Rules Of Morality Governing Mans Life In Society Harms Not Only Himself, But Everyone.

He Who Is Unfit To Serve His Fellow Citizens Wants To Rule Them.

Depression Is The Aftermath Of Credit Expansion.

Everyone Carries A Part Of Society On His Shoulders; No One Is Relieved Of His Share Of Responsibility By Others. And No One Can Find A Safe Way Out For Himself If Society Is Sweeping Toward Destruction. Therefore, Everyone, In His Own Interests, Must Thrust Himself Vigorously Into The Intellectual Battle. None Can Stand Aside With Unconcern; The Interest Of Everyone Hangs On The Result. Whether He Chooses Or Not, Every Man Is Drawn Into The Great Historical Struggle, The Decisive Battle Into Which Our Epoch Has Plunged Us.

Democracy Is Not A Good That People Can Enjoy Without Trouble. It Is, On The Contrary, A Treasure That Must Be Daily Defended And Conquered Anew By Strenuous Effort.

The Truth Is That Most People Lack The Intellectual Ability And Courage To Resist A Popular Movement, However Pernicious And Ill-considered.

A Lasting Order Cannot Be Established By Bayonets.

The Democracy Of The Market Consists In The Fact That People Themselves Make Their Choices And That No Dictator Has The Power To Force Them To Submit To His Value Judgments.

Government Means Always Coercion And Compulsion And Is By Necessity The Opposite Of Liberty.

Lenin's Ideal Was To Build A Nation's Production Effort According To The Model Of The Post Office.

Despots And Democratic Majorities Are Drunk With Power.

Action Based On Reason, Action Therefore Which Is Only To Be Understood By Reason, Knows Only One End, The Greatest Pleasure Of The Acting Individual.

War Prosperity Is Like The Prosperity That An Earthquake Or A Plague Brings.

He Who Acts Under An Emotional Impulse Also Acts. What Distinguishes An Emotional Action From Other Actions Is The Valuation Of Input And Output. Emotions Disarrange Valuations. Inflamed With Passion, Man Sees The Goal As More Desirable And The Price He Has To Pay For It As Less Burdensome Than He Would In Cool Deliberation.

Thoughts And Ideas Are Not Phantoms. They Are Real Things. Although Intangible And Immaterial, They Are Factors In Bringing About Changes In The Realm Of Tangible And Material Things.

Economics Must Not Be Relegated To Classrooms And Statistical Offices And Must Not Be Left To Esoteric Circles. It Is The Philosophy Of Human Life And Action And Concerns Everybody And Everything. It Is The Pith Of Civilization And Of Man's Human Existence.

Plato And Hitler Were Both The Same Kind Of Consistent Socialists Who Planned Also For The Production Of Future Socialists, The Breeding And Education Of Future Members Of Society.

The Boom Is Called Good Business, Prosperity, And Upswing. Its Unavoidable Aftermath, The Readjustment Of Conditions To The Real Data Of The Market, Is Called Crisis, Slump, Bad Business, Depression.

Under The Gold Standard Gold Is Money And Money Is Gold. It Is Immaterial Whether Or Not The Laws Assign Legal Tender Quality Only To Gold Coins Minted By The Government.

The Development Of Capitalism Consists In Everyone Having The Right To Serve The Consumer Better Or More Cheaply.

An Intellectual Inferiority Of The Masses Would Manifest Itself Most Evidently In Their Aiming At The Abolition Of The System In Which They Themselves Are Supreme And Are Served By The Elite Of The Most Talented Men.

Where Nietzsche's Response To The Equation Of Socialism And Morality Was To Question The Value Of Morality, At Least As It Had Been Customarily Understood, Economists Like Mises And Hayek Pursued A Different Path, One Nietzsche Would Never Have Dared To Take: They Made The Market The Very Expression Of Morality.

Servile Labour Disappeared Because It Could Not Stand The Competition Of Free Labour; Its Un-profitability Sealed Its Doom In The Market Economy.

These People Talk Of A "middle-of-the-road" Policy. What They Do Not See Is That The Isolated Interference, Which Means The Interference With Only One Small Part Of The Economic System, Brings About A Situation Which The Government Itself — And The People Who Are Asking For Government Interference — Find Worse Than The Conditions They Wish To Abolish: The People Who Are Asking For Rent Control Are Very Angry When They Discover There Is A Shortage Of Apartments And A Shortage Of Housing.

A Wealthy Man Can Preserve His Wealth Only By Continuing To Serve The Consumers In The Most Efficient Way.

True, Governments Can Reduce The Rate Of Interest In The Short Run. They Can Issue Additional Paper Money. They Can Open The Way To Credit Expansion By The Banks. They Can Thus Create An Artificial Boom And The Appearance Of Prosperity. But Such A Boom Is Bound To Collapse Soon Or Late And To Bring About A Depression.

The Final Outcome Of The Credit Expansion Is General Impoverishment.

How Pale Is The Art Of Sorcerers, Witches, And Conjurors When Compared With That Of The Government's Treasury Department!

The Mixing Of Politics And Business Not Only Is Detrimental To Politics, As Is Frequently Observed, But Even Much More So To Business.

Every Socialist Is A Disguised Dictator.

Under Capitalism The Common Man Enjoys Amenities Which In Ages Gone By Were Unknown And Therefore Inaccessible Even To The Richest People. But, Of Course, These Motorcars, Television Sets And Refrigerators Do Not Make A Man Happy. In The Instant In Which He Acquires Them, He May Feel Happier Than He Did Before. But As Soon As Some Of His Wishes Are Satisfied, New Wishes Spring Up. Such Is Human Nature.

Reason And Action Are Congeneric And Homogenous, Two Aspects Of The Same Phenomenon.

A Free Press Can Only Exist Where There Is Private Control Over The Means Of Production

Society Is Only Possible On These Terms, That The Individual Finds Therein A Strengthening Of His Own Ego And His Own Will.

Fortunes Cannot Grow; Someone Has To Increase Them.

The Gold Standard Makes The Money's Purchasing Power Independent Of The Changing, Ambitions And Doctrines Of Political Parties And Pressure Groups. This Is Not A Defect Of The Gold Standard; It Is Its Main Excellence.

What Generates War Is The Economic Philosophy Of Nationalism: Embargoes, Trade And Foreign Exchange Controls, Monetary Devaluation, Etc. The Philosophy Of Protectionism Is A Philosophy Of War.

There Is In The Universe Something For The Description And Analysis Of Which The Natural Sciences Cannot Contribute Anything. There Are Events Beyond The Range Of Those Events That The Procedures Of The Natural Sciences Are Fit To Observe And Describe. There Is Human Action.

The Struggle For Freedom Is Not The Struggle Of The Many Against The Few, But Of Minorities, Sometimes Of A Minority Of But One Man Gainst The Majority.

There Would Not Be Any Profits But For The Eagerness Of The Public To Acquire The Merchandise Offered For Sale By The Successful Entrepreneur. But The Same People Who Scramble For These Articles Vilify The Businessman And Call His Profit Ill-got.

Almost All The Fathers Of Socialism Were Members Of The Upper Middle Class Or Of The Professions.

There Is Simply No Other Choice Than This: Either To Abstain From Interference In The Free Play Of The Market, Or To Delegate The Entire Management Of Production And Distribution To The Government. Either Capitalism Or Socialism: There Exists No Middle Way.

In Capitalist Enterprise There Is No Secure Income And No Security Of Wealth.

As The Liberal Sees It, The Task Of The State Consists Solely And Exclusively In Guaranteeing The Protection Of Life, Health, Liberty, And Private Property Against Violent Attacks. Everything That Goes Beyond This Is An Evil. A Government That, Instead Of Fulfilling Its Task, Sought To Go So Far As Actually To Infringe On Personal Security Of Life And Health, Freedom, And Property Would, Of Course, Be Altogether Bad.

You Know That The Population Is Of This Planet Is Now Ten Times Greater Than It Was In The Ages Preceding Capitalism.; You Know That All Men Today Enjoy A Higher Standard Of Living Than Your Ancestors Did Before The Age Of Capitalism. But How Do You Know That You Are The One Out Of Ten Who Would Have Lived In The Absence Of Capitalism? The Mere Fact That You Are Living Today Is Proof That Capitalism Has Succeeded, Whether Or Not You Consider Your Own Life Very Valuable.

What Is Needed For A Sound Expansion Of Production Is Additional Capital Goods, Not Money Or Fiduciary Media. The Credit Expansion Is Built On The Sands Of Banknotes And Deposits. It Must Collapse.

The Only Source Of The Generation Of Additional Capital Goods Is Saving. If All The Goods Produced Are Consumed, No New Capital Comes Into Being.

The Wealth Of The Well-to-do Of An Industrial Society Is Both The Cause And Effect Of The Masses' Well-being.

A New Type Of Superstition Has Got Hold Of People's Minds, The Worship Of The State. People Demand The Exercise Of The Methods Of Coercion And Compulsion, Of Violence And Threat. Woe To Anybody Who Does Not Bend His Knee To The Fashionable Idols!

The So-called Liberals Of Today Have The Very Popular Idea That Freedom Of Speech, Of Thought, Of The Press, Freedom Of Religion, Freedom From Imprisonment Without Trial-that All These Freedoms Can Be Preserved In The Absence Of What Is Called Economic Freedom. They Do Not Realize That, In A System Where There Is No Market, Where The Government Directs Everything, All Those Other Freedoms Are Illusory, Even If They Are Made Into Laws And Written Up In Constitutions.

Sovereignty Must Not Be Used For Inflicting Harm On Anyone, Whether Citizen Or Foreigner.

The Study Of Economics Has Been Again And Again Led Astray By The Vain Idea That Economics Must Proceed According To The Pattern Of Other Sciences.

State Interference In Economic Life, Which Calls Itself Economic Policy, Has Done Nothing But Destroy Economic Life. Prohibitions And Regulations Have By Their General Obstructive Tendency Fostered The Growth Of The Spirit Of Wastefulness.

Freedom Really Means The Freedom To Make Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

There Were Nowhere More Docile Disciples Of Lenin, Trotsky And Stalin Than The Nazis Were.

Human Action Is Purposeful Behavior.

Every Extension Of The Functions And Power Of The State Beyond Its Primary Duty Of Maintaining Peace And Justice Should Be Scrutinized With Jealous Vigilance.

The Policies Advocated By The Welfare School Remove The Incentive To Saving On The Part Of Private Citizens.

The Idea That Political Freedom Can Be Preserved In The Absence Of Economic Freedom, And Vice Versa, Is An Illusion. Political Freedom Is The Corollary Of Economic Freedom.

All People, Entrepreneurs As Well As Non-entrepreneurs, Look Askance Upon Any Profits Earned By Other People. Envy Is A Common Weakness Of Men. People Are Loath To Acknowledge The Fact That They Themselves Could Have Earned Profits If They Had Displayed The Same Foresight And Judgment The Successful Businessman Did.

Society Cannot Contribute Anything To The Breeding And Growing Of Ingenious Men. A Creative Genius Cannot Be Trained. There Are No Schools For Creativeness. A Genius Is Precisely A Man Who Defies All Schools And Rules, Who Deviates From The Traditional Roads Of Routine And Opens Up New Paths Through Land Inaccessible Before. A Genius Is Always A Teacher, Never A Pupil; He Is Always Self-made.

If Some Peoples Pretend That History Or Geography Gives Them The Right To Subjugate Other Races, Nations, Or Peoples, There Can Be No Peace.

As Soon As The Economic Freedom Which The Market Economy Grants To Its Members Is Removed, All Political Liberties And Bills Of Rights Become Humbug.

The Real Bosses, In The Capitalist System Of Market Economy, Are The Consumers.

Laissez Faire Does Not Mean: Let Soulless Mechanical Forces Operate. It Means: Let Individuals Choose How They Want To Cooperate In The Social Division Of Labor And Let Them Determine What The Entrepreneurs Should Produce.

Division Of Labor

The Interventionist Policy (big Government) Provides Thousands And Thousands Of People With Safe, Placid, And Not Too Strenuous Jobs At The Expense Of The Rest Of Society.

Western Civilization Is Based Upon The Libertarian Principle, And All Its Achievements Are The Results Of The Action Of Free Men.

The Issue Is Always The Same: The Government Or The Market. There Is No Third Solution.

Public Opinion Takes No Offense At The Endeavors Of Farmers, Workers, Clerks, Teachers, Doctors, Ministers, And People From Many Other Callings To Earn As Much As They Can. But It Censures The Capitalists And Entrepreneurs For Their Greed.

Capitalism Has Improved The Standard Of Living Of The Wage Earners To An Unprecedented Extent. The Average American Family Enjoys Today Amenities Of Which, Only A Hundred Years Ago, Not Even The Richest Nabobs Dreamed.

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Elizabeth Gaskell

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