Background Image

...

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.

-Ludwig Von Mises

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Everything Brought Forward In

Ludwig Von Mises

...

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.

Views: 10

Topic

More From Ludwig Von Mises

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.

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.

Every Innovation Makes Its Appearance As A 'luxury' Of The Few Well-to-do. After Industry Has Become Aware Of It, The Luxury Then Becomes A 'necessity' For All.

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.

Socialism Is The Renunciation Of Rational Economy.

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

It Is Impossible To Grasp The Meaning Of The Idea Of Sound Money If One Does Not Realize That It Was Devised As An Instrument For The Protection Of Civil Liberties Against Despotic Inroads On The Part Of Governments.

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

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.

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

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

Peace And Not War Is The Father Of All Things.

[t]he Essence Of So-called War Prosperity: It Enriches Some By What It Takes From Others. It Is Not Rising Wealth But A Shifting Of Wealth And Income.

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.

What Vitiates Entirely The Socialists Economic Critique Of Capitalism Is Their Failure To Grasp The Sovereignty Of The Consumers In The Market Economy.

It Is Impossible To Understand The History Of Economic Thought If One Does Not Pay Attention To The Fact That Economics As Such Is A Challenge To The Conceit Of Those In Power.

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.

Without Speculation There Can Be No Economic Activity Reaching Beyond The Immediate Present.

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.

Many Pioneers Of These Industrial Changes, It Is True, Became Rich. But They Acquired Their Wealth By Supplying The Public With Motor Cars, Airplanes, Radio Sets, Refrigerators, Moving And Talking Pictures, And Variety Of Less Spectacular But No Less Useful Innovations. These New Products Were Certainly Not An Achievement Of Offices And Bureaucrats.

Spontaneous Actions Of Individuals, Aiming At Nothing Else Than At The Improvement Of Their Own State Of Satisfaction, Undermined The Prestige Of The Coercive Status System Step By Step.

The First Socialists Were The Intellectuals; They, And Not The Masses, Are The Backbone Of Socialism.

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

As Soon As We Surrender The Principle That The State Should Not Interfere In Any Questions Touching On The Individuals Mode Of Life, We End By Regulating And Restricting The Latter Down To The Smallest Details.

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.

Facts Per Se Can Neither Prove Nor Refute Anything. Everything Is Decided By The Interpretation And Explanation Of The Facts, By The Ideas And The Theories.

If The Members Of Parliament No Longer Consider Themselves Mandatories Of The Taxpayers But Deputies Of Those Receiving Salaries, Wages, Subsidies, Doles, And Other Benefits From The Treasury, Democracy Is Done For.

The History Of Mankind Is The History Of Ideas. For It Is Ideas, Theories, And Doctrines That Guide Human Action, Determine The Ultimate Ends Men Aim At, And The Choice Of The Means Employed For The Attainment Of These Ends.

The Pseudo-liberals Monopolize The Teaching Jobs At Many Universities. Only Men Who Agree With Them Are Appointed As Teachers And Instructors Of The Social Sciences, And Only Textbooks Supporting Their Ideas Are Used.

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

The "progressives" Who Today Masquerade As "liberals" May Rant Against "fascism"; Yet It Is Their Policy That Paves The Way For Hitlerism. Nothing Could Have Been More Helpful To The Success Of The National-socialist (nazi) Movement Than The Methods Used By The "progressives," Denouncing Nazism As A Party Serving The Interests Of "capital." The German Workers Knew This Tactic Too Well To Be Deceived By It Again.

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

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

History Does Not Provide Any Example Of Capital Accumulation Brought About By A Government. As Far As Governments Invested In The Construction Of Roads, Railroads, And Other Useful Public Works, The Capital Needed Was Provided By The Savings Of Individual Citizens And Borrowed By The Government.

There Are For Man Only Two Principles Available For A Mental Grasp Of Reality, Namely, Those Of Teleology And Causality. What Cannot Be Brought Under Either Of These Categories Is Absolutely Hidden To The Human Mind. An Event Not Open To An Interpretation By One Of These Two Principles Is For Man Inconceivable And Mysterious. Change Can Be Conceived As The Outcome Either Of The Operation Of Mechanistic Causality Or Of Purposeful Behavior; For The Human Mind There Is No Third Way Available.

If The Government Objects To Monopoly Prices For New Inventions, It Should Stop Granting Patents.

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

A Country Becomes More Prosperous In Proportion To The Rise In The Invested Capital Unit Per Unit Of Its Population.

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.

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

Despots And Democratic Majorities Are Drunk With Power.

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

Permanent Mass Unemployment Destroys The Moral Foundations Of The Social Order. The Young People, Who, Having Finished Their Training For Work, Are Forced To Remain Idle, Are The Ferment Out Of Which The Most Radical Political Movements Are Formed. In Their Ranks The Soldiers Of The Coming Revolutions Are Recruited.

The Market Is A Democracy In Which Every Penny Gives A Right To Vote.

Library Of The Works Of Ludwig Von Mises”. Here Is An Article He Wrote In 1951, Some Two Years After His Magnum Opus Human Action Appeared, Where Is Lays Out His Case In A More Popular Form. The Money Sentences Are “economic Theory Has Demonstrated In An Irrefutable Way That A Prosperity Created By An Expansionist Monetary And Credit Policy Is Illusory And Must End In A Slump, An Economic Crisis. It Has Happened Again And Again In The Past, And It Will Happen In The Future, Too.

Some Think That They Will Exercise Power For The General Good, But That Is What All Those With Power Have Believed. Power Is Evil In Itself, Regardless Of Who Exercises It.

Whoever Prefers Life To Death, Happiness To Suffering, Well-being To Misery Must Defend Without Compromise Private Ownership In The Means Of Production.

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.

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

Inflation Is Essentially Antidemocratic.

The Philosophy Of Protectionism Is A Philosophy Of War.

If People Do Not Consume Their Whole Incomes, The Non-consumed Surplus Can Be Invested, It Increases The Amount Of Capital Goods Available And Thereby Makes It Possible To Embark Upon Projects Which Could Not Be Executed Before.

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

The Tricks And Artifices Of Advertising Are Available To The Seller Of The Better Product No Less Than To The Seller Of The Poorer Product. But Only The Former Enjoys The Advantage Derived From The Better Quality Of His Product.

The Genuine History Of Mankind Is The History Of Ideas. It Is Ideas That Distinguish Man From All Other Beings. Ideas Engender Social Institutions, Political Changes, Technologi- Cal Methods Of Production, And All That Is Called Economic Conditions.

There Cannot Be Stable Money Within An Environment Dominated By Ideologies Hostile To The Preservation Of Economic Freedom.

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.

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.

Progress Is Precisely That Which Rules And Regulations Did Not Foresee.

Rules And Regulations

An Essential Point In The Social Philosophy Of Interventionism Is The Existence Of An Inexhaustible Fund Which Can Be Squeezed Forever. The Whole System Of Interventionism Collapses When The Fountain Is Drained Off: The Santa Clause Principle Liquidates Itself.

Everybody Thinks Of Economics Whether He Is Aware Of It Or Not. In Joining A Political Party Or In Casting His Ballot, The Citizen Implicitly Takes A Stand Upon Essential Economic Theories.

Tyranny Is The Political Corollary Of Socialism, As Representative Government Is The Political Corollary Of The Market Economy.

What Mankind Needs Today Is Liberation From The Rule Of Nonsensical Slogans And A Return To Sound Reasoning.

The Member Of A Contractual Society Is Free Because He Serves Others Only In Serving Himself. What Restrains Him Is Only The Inevitable Natural Phenomenon Of Scarcity.

It Is Not Enough For [the Investor] To Know All The Factors That Can Possibly Contribute To The Determination Of A Future Event. In Order To Anticipate Correctly They Must Also Anticipate Correctly The Quantity As It Were Of Each Factor's Contribution And The Instant At Which Its Contribution Will Become Effective.

It Is Indeed One Of The Principal Drawbacks Of Every Kind Of Interventionism That It Is So Difficult To Reverse The Process.

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

The Main Propoganda Trick Of Supporters Of The Allegedly "progressive" Policy Of Government Control Is To Blame Capitalism For All That Is Unsatisfactory In Present-day Conditions And To Extol The Blessings Of Socialism. They Have Never Attempted To Prove Their Fallacious Dogmas, All They Did Was To Call Their Adversaries Names And Cast Suspicion Upon Their Motives. And, Unfortunately, The Average Citizen Cannot See Through These Stratagems. The Liars Must Be Afraid Of The Truth And Are Therefore Driven To Suppress Its Pronouncement.

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 Champions Of Socialism Call Themselves Progressives, But They Recommend A System Which Is Characterized By Rigid Observance Of Routine And By A Resistance To Every Kind Of Improvement. They Call Themselves Liberals, But They Are Intent Upon Abolishing Liberty. They Call Themselves Democrats, But They Yearn For Dictatorship. They Call Themselves Revolutionaries, But They Want To Make The Government Omnipotent. They Promise The Blessings Of The Garden Of Eden, But They Plan To Transform The World Into A Gigantic Post Office. Every Man But One A Subordinate Clerk In A Bureau.

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

Depressions And Mass Unemployment Are Not Caused By The Free Market But By Government Interference In The Economy.

For It Is An Essential Difference Between Capitalist And Socialist Production That Under Capitalism Men Provide For Themselves, While Under Socialism They Are Provided For.

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.

It Is Necessary To Curb The Power Of Government. This Is The Task Of All Constitutions, Bills Of Rights And Laws. This Is The Meaning Of All Struggles Which Men Have Fought For Liberty.

The Planner Is A Potential Dictator Who Wants To Deprive All Other People Of The Power To Plan And Act According To Their Own Plans. He Aims At One Thing Only: The Exclusive Absolute Preeminence Of His Own Plan.

Socialist Society Is A Society Of Officials.

Every Specific Tax, As Well As The Nation's Whole Tax System, Becomes Self-defeating Above A Certain Height Of The Rates.

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

The Capitalist System Of Production Is An Economic Democracy In Which Every Penny Gives A Right To Vote. The Consumers Are The Sovereign People. The Capitalists, The Entrepreneurs, And The Farmers Are The People's Mandatories. If They Do Not Obey, If They Fail To Produce, At The Lowest Possible Cost, What

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.

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

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 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

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.

On The Unhampered Market There Prevails An Irresistible Tendency To Employ Every Factor Of Production For The Best Possible Satisfaction Of The Most Urgent Needs Of The Consumers. If The Government Interfered With This Process, It Can Only Impair Satisfaction; It Can Never Improve It.

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

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

In A Battle Between Force And An Idea, The Latter Always Prevails.

Big Business Always Serve - Directly Or Indirectly - The Masses.

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

The Foundation Of Any And Every Civilization, Including Our Own, Is Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production. Whoever Wishes To Criticize Modern Civilization, Therefore, Begins With Private Property.

Government Is The Only Institution That Can Take A Valuable Commodity Like Paper, And Make It Worthless By Applying Ink.

Economic Theory Has Demonstrated In An Irrefutable Way That A Prosperity Created By An Expansionist Monetary And Credit Policy Is Illusory And Must End In A Slump, An Economic Crisis.

This Is The Difference Between Slavery And Freedom. The Slave Must Do What His Superior Orders Him To Do, But The Free Citizen-and This Is What Freedom Means-is In A Position To Choose His Own Way Of Life.

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

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

Action Is An Attempt To Substitute A More Satisfactory State Of Affairs For A Less Satisfactory One. We Call Such A Willfully Induced Alteration An Exchange.

Only The Naive Inflationist's Could Believe That Government Could Enrich Mankind Through Fiat Money.

Every Step Toward The Elimination Of Profit Is Progress On The Way Toward Social Disintegration.

The Philosophy Commonly Called Individualism Is A Philosophy Of Social Cooperation And The Progressive Intensification Of The Social Nexus.

What Workers Must Learn Is That The Only Reason Why Wage Rates Are Higher In The United States Is That The Per Head Quota Of Capital Invested Is Higher.

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

Continued Inflation Inevitably Leads To Catastrophe.

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

In Many Fields Of The Administration Of Interventionist Measures, Favoritism Simply Cannot Be Avoided.

Planning Other People's Actions Means To Prevent Them From Planning For Themselves, Means To Deprive Them Of Their Essentially Human Quality, Means Enslaving Them.

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

Taxes Are Necessary. But The System Of Discriminatory Taxation Universally Accepted Under The Misleading Name Of Progressive Taxation Of Income And Inheritance Is Not A Mode Of Taxation. It Is Rather A Mode Of Disguised Expropriation Of The Successful Capitalists And Entrepreneurs.

Progressive Taxation

Once It Has Been Perceived That The Division Of Labour Is The Essence Of Society, Nothing Remains Of The Antithesis Between Individual And Society. The Contradiction Between Individual Principle And Social Principle Disappears.

Capitalism Or Market Economy Is That System Of Social Cooperation And Division Of Labor That Is Based On Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production.

Division Of Labor

What Is Called Economic Progress Is The Joint Effect Of The Activities Of The Three Progressive Groups-or Classes-of The Savers, The Scientist-inventors, And The Entrepreneurs, Operating In A Market Economy As Far As It Is Not Sabotaged By The Endeavors Of The Nonprogressive Majority Of The Routinists And The Public Policies Supported By Them.

Profits Are The Driving Force Of The Market Economy. The Greater The Profits, The Better The Needs Of The Consumers Are Supplied... He Who Serves The Public Best, Makes The Highest Profits.

...this Remedy Is The Power Of The Citizens; They Have To Prevent The Establishment Of Such An Autocratic Regime That Arrogates To Itself A Higher Wisdom Than That Of The Average Citizen. This Is The Fundamental Difference Between Freedom And Serfdom.

The Distinctive Principle Of Western Social Philosophy Is Individualism.

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.

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.

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

The Market And Its Inescapable Law Are Supreme.

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.

The Market System Makes All Producers Responsible To The Consumer.

An Anti-something Movement Displays A Purely Negative Attitude. It Has No Chance Whatever To Succeed. Its Passionate Diatribes Virtually Advertise The Program They Attack. People Must Fight For Something That They Want To Achieve, Not Simply Reject An Evil, However Bad It May Be.

All Present-day Governments Are Fanatically Committed To An Easy Money Policy.

There Is No Use In Deceiving Ourselves. American Public Opinion Rejects The Market Economy, The Capitalistic Free Enterprise System That Provided The Nation With The Highest Standard Of Living Ever Attained. Full Government Control Of All Activities Of The Individual Is Virtually The Goal Of Both National Parties.

Where There Is No Market Economy, The Best Intentioned Provisions Of Constitutions And Laws Remain A Dead Letter.

The Capitalistic Social Order, Therefore, Is An Economic Democracy In The Strictest Sense Of The Word. In The Last Analysis, All Decisions Are Dependent On The Will Of The People As Consumers. Thus, Whenever There Is A Conflict Between The Consumers' Views And Those Of The Business Managers, Market Pressures Assure That The Views Of The Consumers Win Out Eventually.

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.

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.

It Is The Worst Of All Superstitions To Assume That The Epistemological Characteristics Of One Branch Of Knowledge Must Necessarily Be Applicable To Any Other Branch.

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

Neither The Entrepreneurs Nor The Farmers Nor The Capitalists Determine What Has To Be Produced. The Consumers Do That.

No Matter How Efficient School Training May Be, It Would Only Produce Stagnation, Orthodoxy, And Rigid Pedantry If There Were No Uncommon Men Pushing Forward Beyond The Wisdom Of Their Tutors.

Inflation Is The Fiscal Complement Of Statism And Arbitrary Government. It Is A Cog In The Complex Of Policies And Institutions Which Gradually Lead Toward Totalitarianism .

It Is Not The Fault Of The Entrepreneurs That The Consumers,the People, The Common Man,prefer Liquor To Bibles And Detective Stories To Serious Books, And That Governments Prefer Guns To Butter. The Entrepreneur Does Not Make Greater Profits In Selling Bad Things Than In Selling Good Things. His Profits Are The Greater The Better He Succeeds In Providing The Consumers With Those Things They Ask For Most Intensely.

A Society That Chooses Between Capitalism And Socialism Does Not Choose Between Two Social Systems; It Chooses Between Social Cooperation And The Disintegration Of Society. Socialism Is Not An Alternative To Capitalism; It Is An Alternative To Any System Under Which Men Can Live As Human Beings.

A Lasting Order Cannot Be Established By Bayonets.

There Is No Reason Why Capitalists And Entrepreneurs Should Be Ashamed Of Earning Profits.

People Must Learn That The Accumulation Of Wealth By The Successful Conduct Of Business Is The Corollary Of The Improvement Of Their Own Standard Of Living And Vice Versa. They Must Realize That Bigness In Business Is Not An Evil, But Both The Cause And Effect Of The Fact That They Themselves Enjoy All Those Amenities Whose Enjoyment Is Called The “american Way Of Life.

The Market Economy-capitalism-is A Social System Of Consumers' Supremacy.

There Is No Western, Capitalistic Country In Which The Conditions Of The Masses Have Not Improved In An Unprecedented Way.

It Has Always Been The Task Of The New Generation To Provoke Changes.

Notwithstanding All The Passionate Fulminations Of The Spokesmen Of Governments, The Inevitable Consequences Of Inflationism And Expansionism...are Coming To Pass. And Then, Very Late Indeed, Even Simple People Will Discover That Keynes Did Not Teach Us How To Perform The 'miracle...of Turning A Stone Into Bread,' But The Not At All Miraculous Procedure Of Eating The Seed Corn.

Depression Is The Aftermath Of Credit Expansion.

The Most Important Thing To Remember Is That Inflation Is Not An Act Of God, That Inflation Is Not A Catastrophe Of The Elements Or A Disease That Comes Like The Plague. Inflation Is A Policy.

During The 2300 Years Since Plato, Very Little Opposition Has Been Registered To His Ideas.

Do Not Give In To Evil, But Proceed Ever More Boldly Against It.

It Is Impossible To Describe Any Human Action If One Does Not Refer To The Meaning The Actor Sees In The Stimulus As Well As In The End His Response Is Aiming At.

It Is Important To Remember That Government Interference Always Means Either Violent Action Or The Threat Of Such Action. The Funds That A Government Spends For Whatever Purposes Are Levied By Taxation. And Taxes Are Paid Because The Taxpayers Are Afraid Of Offering Resistance To The Tax Gatherers. They Know That Any Disobedience Or Resistance Is Hopeless. As Long As This Is The State Of Affairs, The Government Is Able To Collect The Money That It Wants To Spend.

Louis Xiv Was Very Frank And Sincere When He Said: I Am The State. The Modern Statist Is Modest. He Says: I Am The Servant Of The State; But, He Implies, The State Is God. You Could Revolt Against A Bourbon King, And The French Did It. This Was, Of Course, A Struggle Of Man Against Man. But You Cannot Revolt Against The God State And Against His Humble Handy Man, The Bureaucrat.

As The Prosperity Of The Nation And The Height Of Wage Rates Depend On A Continual Increase In The Capital Invested In Its Plants, Mines And Farms, It Is One Of The Foremost Tasks Of Good Government To Remove All Obstacles That Hinder The Accumulation And Investment Of New Capital.

Political Ideas That Have Dominated The Public Mind For Decades Cannot Be Refuted Through Rational Arguments. They Must Run Their Course In Life And Cannot Collapse Otherwise Than In Great Catastrophe.

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.

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

A Genius Is Always A Teacher, Never A Pupil; He Is Always Self-made.

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.

The Law-abiding Citizen By His Labor Serves Both Himself And His Fellow Man And Thereby Integrates Himself Peacefully Into The Social Order. The Robber, On The Other Hand, Is Intent, Not On Honest Toil, But On The Forcible Appropriation Of The Fruits Of Others' Labor.

Within The Market Society Each Serves All His Fellow Citizens And Each Is Served By Them. It Is A System Of Mutual Exchange Of Services And Commodities, A Mutual Giving, And Receiving.

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 Sharper The Competition, The Better It Serves Its Social Function To Improve Economic Production.

Socialism Is Not An Alternative To Capitalism; It Is An Alternative To Any System Under Which Men Can Live As Human Beings.

He Who Accepts Life For What It Is And Never Allows Himself To Be Overwhelmed By It Does Not Need To Seek Refuge For His Crushed Self-confidence In The Solace Of A 'saving Lie'. If The Longed-for Success Is Not Forthcoming, If The Vicissitudes Of Fate Destroy In The Twinkling Of An Eye What Had To Be Painstakingly Built Up By Years Of Hard Work, Then He Simply Multiplies His Exertions. He Can Look Disaster In The Eye Without Despairing.

The Market Steers The Capitalistic Economy. It Directs Each Individual's Activities Into Those Channels In Which He Best Serves The Wants Of His Fellow-men. The Market Alone Puts The Whole Social System Of Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production And Free Enterprise In Order And Provides It With Sense And Meaning.

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

It Is Solely Bigness In Business Which Makes It Possible To Supply The Masses With All Those Products The Present-day American Common Man Does Not Want To Do Without. Luxury Goods For The Few Can Be Produced In Small Shops. Luxury Goods For The Many Require Big Business.

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.

Every Collectivist Assumes A Different Source For The Collective Will, According To His Own Political, Religious And National Convictions.

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.

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.

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

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.

Changes In Human Conditions Are Brought About By The Pioneering Of The Cleverest And Most Energetic Men. They Take The Lead And The Rest Of Mankind Follows Them Little By Little.

Human Condition

Under Capitalism The Common Man Enjoys Amenities Which In Ages Gone By Were Unknown And Therefore Inaccessible Even To The Richest People.

They [intellectuals] Coined Most Of The Slogans That Guided The Butcheries Of Bolshevism, Fascism, And Nazism. Intellectuals Extolling The Delights Of Murder, Writers Advocating Censorship, Philosophers Judging The Merits Of Thinkers And Authors, Not According To The Value Of Their Contributions But According To Their Achievements On Battlefields, Are The Spiritual Leaders Of Our Age Of Perpetual Strife.

Welfare Policies Never Attain Those - Allegedly Beneficial - Ends Which The Government And The Self-styled Progressives Who Advocated Them Wanted To Attain, But - On The Contrary - Bring About A State Of Affairs Which - From The Very Point Of View Of The Government And Its Supporters - Is Even More Unsatisfactory Than The Previous State Of Affairs They Wanted To 'improve.'

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.

It Is Not Conclusive Proof Of A Doctrine's Correctness That Its Adversaries Use The Police, The Hangman, And Violent Mobs To Fight It. But It Is A Proof Of The Fact That Those Taking Recourse To Violent Oppression Are In Their Subconscious Convinced Of The Untenability Of Their Own Doctrines.

If One Regards Inflation As An Evil, Then One Has To Stop Inflating. One Has To Balance The Budget Of The Government.

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

Socialism And Interventionism. Both Have In Common The Goal Of Subordinating The Individual Unconditionally To The State.

As The Science Of Economics...exploded The Fallacies Of Every Brand Of Utopianism, It Was Outlawed And Stigmatized As Unscientific.

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.

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

Under Capitalism Everybody Is The Architect Of His Own Fortune.

The Standard Of Living Of The Common Man Is Higher In Those Countries Which Have The Greatest Number Of Wealthy Entrepreneurs.

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.

At Eighty-eight How Do You Feel When Getting Up In The Morning?...amazed!

It Is Important To Remember That Government Interference Always Means Either Violent Action Or The Threat Of Such Action. Government Is In The Last Resort The Employment Of Armed Men, Of Policemen, Gendarmes, Soldiers, Prison Guards, And Hangmen. The Essential Feature Of Government Is The Enforcement Of Its Decrees By Beating, Killing, And Imprisoning. Those Who Are Asking For More Government Interference Are Asking Ultimately For More Compulsion And Less Freedom.

It Is Completely In Accord With The Etatist Thinking Prevalent Everywhere Today To Consider A Theory To Be Finally Disposed Of Merely Because The Authorities Who Control Appointments To Academic Positions, Want To Know Nothing Of It, And To See The Criterion Of Truth In The Approval Of A Government Office.

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 Essence Of Keynesianism Is Its Complete Failure To Conceive The Role That Saving And Capital Accumulation Play In The Improvement Of Economic Conditions.

Progress Of Any Kind Is Always At Variance With The Old And Established Ideas And Therefore With The Codes Inspired By Them. Every Step Of Progress Is A Change Involving Heavy Risks.

The Government And Its Chiefs Do Not Have The Powers Of The Mythical Santa Claus. They Cannot Spend Except By Taking Out Of The Pockets Of Some People For The Benefit Of Others.

Production Is Not Something Physical, Material, And External; It Is A Spiritual And Intellectual Phenomenon.

No Increase In The Welfare Of The Member Of Society Can Result From The Availability Of An Additional Quantity Of Money.

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.

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

The Final Outcome Of The Credit Expansion Is General Impoverishment.

The Prerequisite For More Economic Equality In The World Is Industrialization. And This Is Possible Only Through Increased Capital Investment, Increased Capital Accumulation.

Industrialization

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

Government Force Is Derived From The Sum Of The Physical Force Each Citizen Could Exert Which By One Citizen Himself Would Be Ineffective, But When Summed From The Force Of All The Area's Citizens Indeed Composes A Power No Citizen Or Group Can Withstand. That Force Is Then Rightly But Justly To Be Used Against Those Who Violate The Foundation Pillars Of Freedom.

Trending Author

Alma Guillermoprieto

William E. Gladstone

Ludwig Van Beethoven

Category