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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.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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Inequality Of Wealth And

Ludwig Von Mises

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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.

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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.

Free Markets. What Does This System Mean? The Answer Is Simple: It Is The Market Economy, It Is The System In Which The Cooperation Of Individuals In The Social Division Of Labor Is Achieved By The Market.

Division Of Labor

Peace And Not War Is The Father Of All Things.

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.

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

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.

Do The American Voters Know That The Unprecedented Improvement In Their Standard Of Living That The Last Hundred Years Brought Was The Result Of The Steady Rise In The Per-head Quota Of Capital Invested? Do They Realize That Every Measure Leading To Capital Decumulation Jeopardizes Their Prosperity?

The Philosophy Underlying The System Of Progressive Taxation Is That The Income And Wealth Of The Well-to-do Classes Can Be Freely Tapped. What The Advocates Of These Tax Rates Fail To Realize Is That The Greater Part Of The Incomes Taxed Away Would Not Have Been Consumed But Saved And Invested.

Progressive Taxation

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.

Economically Considered, War And Revolution Are Always Bad Business.

The Market Economy As Such Does Not Respect Political Frontiers. Its Field Is The World.

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.

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.

Only Stilted Pedants Can Conceive The Idea That There Are Absolute Norms To Tell What Is Beautiful And What Is Not. They Try To Derive From The Works Of The Past A Code Of Rules With Which, As They Fancy, The Writers And Artists Of The Future Should Comply. But The Genius Does Not Cooperate With The Pundit.

War Prosperity Is Like The Prosperity That An Earthquake Or A Plague Brings...but No One Has For Those Reasons Yet Sought To Celebrate Earthquakes And Cholera As Stimulators Of The Productive Forces In The General Interest.

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

There Prevails On A Free Labor Market A Tendency Toward Full Employment.

What Is A Loophole? If The Law Does Not Punish A Definite Action Or Does Not Tax A Definite Thing, This Is Not A Loophole. It Is Simply The Law.

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

The Riches Of The Rich Are Not The Cause Of The Poverty Of Anybody; The Process That Makes Some People Rich Is, On The Contrary, The Corollary Of The Process That Improves Many Peoples Want Satisfaction. The Entrepreneurs, The Capitalists And The Technologists Prosper As Far As They Succeed In Best Supplying The Consumers.

The Market Economy Needs No Apologists And Propagandists. It Can Apply To Itself The Words Of Sir Christopher Wren's Epitaph In St. Paul's: 'if You Seek His Monument, Look Around.'

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

[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.

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.

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.

Government And State Can Never Be Perfect Because They Owe Their Raison D'être To The Imperfection Of Man And Can Attain Their End, The Elimination Of Man's Innate Impulse To Violence, Only By Recourse To Violence, The Very Thing They Are Called Upon To Prevent.

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.

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

It Is Always The Individual Who Thinks. Society Does Not Think Any More Than It Eats Or Drinks. The Evolution Of Human Reasoning From The Naive Thinking Of Primitive Man To The More Subtle Thinking Of Modern Science Took Place Within Society. However, Thinking Itself Is Always An Achievement Of Individuals.

Suggestion Of The Communist Manifesto Was 'abolition Of All Right Of Inheritance.' Looking Backward Upon The Past History Of Estate Taxes, We Have To Realize That They More And More Have Approached The Goal Set By Marx. Estate Taxes Of The Height They Have Already Attained For The Upper Brackets Are No Longer To Be Qualified As Taxes. They Are Measures Of Expropriation.

The Fundamental Law Of The Market Is: The Customer Is Always Right.

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.

Continued Inflation Inevitably Leads To Catastrophe.

The Inequality Of Income And Fortunes Is Essential In Capitalism.

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.

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.

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

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

In The Capitalist Society There Is A Place And Bread For All. Its Ability To Expand Provides Sustenance For Every Worker. Permanent Unemployment Is Not A Feature Of Free Capitalism.

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

The State Can Be And Has Often Been In The Course Of History The Main Source Of Mischief And Disaster.

The Goal Of Liberalism Is The Peaceful Cooperation Of All Men. It Aims At Peace Among Nations Too. When There Is Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production Everywhere And When Laws, The Tribunals And The Administration Treat Foreigners And Citizens On Equal Terms, It Is Of Little Importance Where A Country's Frontiers Are Drawn... War No Longer Pays; There Is No Motive For Aggression... All Nations Can Coexist Peacefully.

The Essence Of Democracy Is Not That Everyone Makes And Administers Laws But That Lawgivers And Rulers Should Be Dependent On The People's Will In Such A Way That They May Be Peaceably Changed If Conflict Occurs.

The Distinctive Principle Of Western Social Philosophy Is Individualism.

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.

Two Hundred Years Ago, Before The Advent Of Capitalism, A Man's Social Status Was Fixed From The Beginning To The End Of His Life; He Inherited It From His Ancestors And It Never Changed.

Interventionism Cannot Be Considered As An Economic System Destined To Stay. It Is A Method For The Transformation Of Capitalism Into Socialism By A Series Of Successive Steps.

A Nation Cannot Prosper If Its Members Are Not Fully Aware Of The Fact That What Alone Can Improve Their Condition S Is More And Better Production. And This Can Only Be Brought About By Increased Saving And Capital Accumulation.

If The Practice Persists Of Covering Government Deficits With The Issue Of Notes, Then The Day Will Come Without Fail, Sooner Or Later, When The Monetary Systems Of Those Nations Pursuing This Course Will Break Down Completely. The Purchasing Power Of The Monetary Unit Will Decline More And More, Until Finally It Disappears Completely.

Disappear Completely

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.

In The Land Of The Lotus-eaters There Is No Action. Action Arises Only From Need, From Dissatisfaction. It Is Purposeful Striving Towards Something. Its Ultimate End Is Always To Get Rid Of A Condition Which Is Conceived To Be Deficient-to Fulfill A Need, To Achieve Satisfaction, To Increase Happiness.

The Attainment Of The Economic Aims Of Man Presupposes Peace.

The Continued Existence Of Society Depends Upon Private Property.

The Egalitarian Doctrine Is Manifestly Contrary To All The Facts Established By Biology And By History. Only Fanatical Partisans Of This Theory Can Contend That What Distinguishes The Genius From The Dullard Is Entirely The Effect Of Postnatal Influences.

Against What Is Stupid, Nonsensical, Erroneous, And Evil, [classical] Liberalism Fights With The Weapons Of The Mind, And Not With Brute Force And Repression.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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 Fact Is That, Under A Capitalistic System, The Ultimate Bosses Are The Consumers. The Sovereign Is Not The State, It Is The People.

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

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

Resentment Is At Work When One So Hates Somebody For His More Favorable Circumstances That One Is Prepared To Bear Heavy Losses If Only The Hated One Might Also Come To Harm. Many Of Those Who Attack Capitalism Know Very Well That Their Situation Under Any Other Economic System Will Be Less Favorable.

Our Whole Civilization Rests On The Fact That Men Have Always Succeeded In Beating Off The Attack Of The Re-distributors.

To Defeat The Aggressors Is Not Enough To Make Peace Durable. The Main Thing Is To Discard The Ideology That Generates War.

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

The State Is Essentially An Apparatus Of Compulsion And Coercion. The Characteristic Feature Of Its Activities Is To Compel People Through The Application Or The Threat Of Force To Behave Otherwise Than They Would Like To Behave.

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.

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

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.

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.

Big Business Depends Entirely On The Patronage Of Those Who Buy Its Products: The Biggest Enterprises Loses Its Power And Its Influence When It Loses Its Customers.

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.

Each Epoch Has Found In The Gospels What It Sought To Find There, And Has Overlooked What It Wished To Overlook.

History Has Witnessed The Failure Of Many Endeavors To Impose Peace By War, Cooperation By Coercion, Unanimity By Slaughtering Dissidents.... A Lasting Order Cannot Be Established By Bayonets.

The Market System Is The Basis Of Our Civilization. Its Only Alternative Is The Führer Principle.

The Aim Of The Popularization Of Economic Studies Is Not To Make Every Man An Economist. The Idea Is To Equip The Citizen For His Civic Functions In Community Life.

Capitalism Needs Neither Propaganda Nor Apostles. Its Achievements Speak For Themselves. Capitalism Delivers The Goods.

The Boom Produces Impoverishment. But Still More Disastrous Are Its Moral Ravages. It Makes People Despondent And Dispirited. The More Optimistic They Were Under The Illusory Prosperity Of The Boom, The Greater Is Their Despair And Their Feeling Of Frustration.

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.

Assistance Granted To The Unemployed Does Not Dispose Of Unemployment. It Makes It Easier For The Unemployed To Remain Idle.

It Is Extremely Difficult For Our Contemporaries To Conceive Of The Conditions Of Free Banking Because They Take Government Interference With Banking For Granted And As Necessary.

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.

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.

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.

If One Takes Pleasure In Calling The Gold Standard A "barbarous Relic," One Cannot Object To The Application Of The Same Term To Every Historically Determined Institution. Then The Fact That The British Speak English - And Not Danish, German, Or French - Is A Barbarous Relic Too, And Every Briton Who Opposes The Substitution Of Esperanto For English Is No Less Dogmatic And Orthodox Than Those Who Do Not Wax Rapturous About The Plans For A Managed Currency.

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.

Modern Society, Based As It Is On The Division Of Labor, Can Be Preserved Only Under Conditions Of Lasting Peace.

Division Of Labor

Government Policies Try To Prevent The Emergence Of Serious Unemployment By Credit Expansion, I.e., Inflation. The Outcome Was Rising Prices, Renewed Demands For Higher Wages And Reiterated Credit Expansion; In Short, Protracted Inflation.

All Rational Action Is In The First Place Individual Action. Only The Individual Thinks. Only The Individual Reasons. Only The Individual Acts.

Socialism Is The Renunciation Of Rational Economy.

Value Is Not Intrinsic, It Is Not In Things. It Is Within Us; It Is The Way In Which Man Reacts To The Conditions Of His Environment. Neither Is Value In Words And Doctrines, It Is Reflected In Human Conduct. It Is Not What A Man Or Groups Of Men Say About Value That Counts, But How They Act.

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

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.

A Lasting Order Cannot Be Established By Bayonets.

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.

The Common Man Is The Sovereign Consumer Whose Buying Or Abstention From Buying Ultimately Determines What Should Be Produced And In What Quantity And Quality.

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

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.

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

A Citizen Who Casts His Ballot Without Having To The Best Of His Abilities Studied As Much Economics As He Can Fails In His Civic Duties.

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.

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

The Luxury Of Today Is The Necessity Of Tomorrow. Every Advance First Comes Into Being As The Luxury Of A Few Rich People, Only To Become, After A Time, An Indispensable Necessity Taken For Granted By Everyone. Luxury Consumption Provides Industry With The Stimulus To Discover And Introduce New, Things. It Is One Of The Dynamic Factors In Our Economy. To It We Owe The Progressive Innovations By Which The Standard Of Living Of All Strata Of The Population Has Been Gradually Raised.

Against Nature And Within Nature There Is No Freedom.

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.

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.

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

Economic Knowledge Necessarily Leads To Liberalism

[e]conomic History Is A Long Record Of Government Policies That Failed Because They Were Designed With A Bold Disregard For The Laws Of Economics

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.

Once The Principle Is Admitted That It Is The Duty Of The Government To Protect The Individual Against His Own Foolishness, No Serious Objections Can Be Advanced Against Further Encroachments.

Spiritual Movements Are Revolts Of Thought Against Inertia, Of The Few Against The Many; Of Those Who Because They Are Strong In Spirit Are Strongest Alone Against Those Who Can Express Themselves Only In The Mass And The Mob, And Who Are Significant Only Because They Are Numerous.

German Marxian's Coined The Dictum: If Socialism Is Against Human Nature, Then Human Nature Must Be Changed.

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.

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.

The Characteristic Feature Of Modern Capitalism Is Mass Production Of Goods Destined For Consumption By The Masses. The Result Is A Tendency Towards A Continuous Improvement In The Average Standard Of Living, A Progressing Enrichment Of The Many.

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

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

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

It Is The Rule Of Law Alone Which Hinders The Rulers From Turning Themselves Into The Worst Gangsters.

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

If The Present Tax Rates Had Been In Effect From The Beginning Of Our Century, Many Who Are Millionaires Today Would Live Under More Modest Circumstances. But All Those New Branches Of Industry Which Supply The Masses With Articles Unheard Of Before, Would Operate, If At All, On A Much Smaller Scale, And Their Products Would Be Beyond The Reach Of The Common Man.

No People And No Part Of A People Shall Be Held Against Its Will In A Political Association That It Does Not Want.

While Under Precapitalistic Conditions Superior Men Were The Masters On Whom The Masses Of The Inferior Had To Attend, Under Capitalism The More Gifted And More Able Have No Means To Profit From Their Superiority Other Than To Serve To The Best Of Their Abilities The Wishes Of The Majority Of The Less Gifted.

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.

Without Calculation, Economic Activity Is Impossible. Since Under Socialism Economic Calculation Is Impossible, Under Socialism There Can Be No Economic Activity In Our Sense Of The Word All Economic Change, Therefore, Would Involve Operations The Value Of Which Could Neither Be Predicted Beforehand Nor Ascertained After They Had Taken Place. Everything Would Be A Leap In The Dark. Socialism Is The Renunciation Of Rational Economy.

Only One Thing Can Conquer War-that Attitude Of Mind Which Can See Nothing In War But Destruction And Annihilation.

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

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

Rules And Regulations

The Early Industrialists Were For The Most Part Men Who Had Their Origin In The Same Social Strata From Which Their Workers Came. They Lived Very Modestly, Spent Only A Fraction Of Their Earnings For Their Households And Put The Rest Back Into The Business.

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

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

General Welfare

The Entrepreneur Profits To The Extent He Has Succeeded In Serving The Consumers Better Than Other People Have Done.

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.

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.

The Masses Favor Socialism Because They Trust The Socialist Propaganda Of The Intellectuals. The Intellectuals, Not The Populace, Are Molding Public Opinion.

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 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.

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.

It Is Untrue That Some Are Poor Because Others Are Rich. If An Order Of Society In Which Incomes Were Equal Replaced The Capitalist Order, Everyone Would Become Poorer.

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.

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

The Superiority Of The Gold Standard Consists In The Fact That The Value Of Gold Develops Independent Of Political Actions.

Liberalism Must Be Intolerant Of Every Sort Of Intolerance.

Government Is Essentially The Negation Of Liberty.

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.

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

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

What People Today Call Inflation Is Not Inflation, I.e., The Increase In The Quantity Of Money And Money Substitutes, But The General Rise In Commodity Prices And Wage Rates Which Is The Inevitable Consequence Of Inflation.

Commodity Prices

There Is No Means Of Avoiding The Final Collapse Of A Boom Brought About By Credit Expansion. The Alternative Is Only Whether The Crisis Should Come Sooner As The Result Of Voluntary Abandonment Of Further Credit Expansion, Or Later As A Final And Total Catastrophe Of The Currency System Involved.

The System That Would Stand Midway Between Capitalism And Socialism.

Capitalism And Socialism

Most Of Us Have No Sympathy With The Rich Idler Who Spends His Life In Pleasure Without Ever Doing Any Work. But Even He Fulfills A Function In The Life Of The Social Organism. He Sets An Example Of Luxury That Awakens In The Multitude A Consciousness Of New Needs And Gives Industry The Incentive To Fulfill Them.

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

It Is Evident That Youth Is The First Victim Of The Trend Toward Bureaucratization. The Young Men Are Deprived Of Any Opportunity To Shape Their Own Fate.

Those Fighting For Free Enterprise And Free Competition Do Not Defend The Interests Of Those Rich Today. They Want A Free Hand Left To Unknown Men Who Will Be The Entrepreneurs Of Tomorrow.

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.

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

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.

The Truth Is That Capitalism Has Not Only Multiplied Population Figures, But At The Same Time, Improved The People's Standard Of Living In An Unprecedented Way. Neither Economic Thinking Nor Historical Experience Suggests That Any Other Social System Could Be As Beneficial To The Masses As Capitalism. The Results Speak For Themselves. The Market Economy Needs No Apologists And Propagandists. It Can Apply To Itself The Words Of Sir Christopher Wren's Epitaph In St. Paul's: Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice.

Once Public Opinion Is Convinced That The Increase In The Quantity Of Money Will Continue And Never Come To An End, And That Consequently The Prices Of All Commodities Will Not Cease To Rise, Everybody Becomes Eager To Buy As Much As Possible And Restrict His Cash Holdings To Minimum Size... If The Credit Expansion Is Not Stopped In Time, The Boom Turns To Crack-up Boom: The Flight Into Real Values Begins, And The Whole Monetary System Founders.

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.

Private Property Creates For The Individual A Sphere In Which He Is Free Of The State. It Sets Limits To The Operation Of The Authoritarian Will.

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.

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

Science Does Not Give Us Absolute And Final Certainty. It Only Gives Us Assurance Within The Limits Of Our Mental Abilities And The Prevailing State Of Scientific Thought.

What Governments Call International Monetary Cooperation Is Concerted Action For The Sake Of Credit Expansion.

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.

The Market System Makes All Producers Responsible To The Consumer.

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

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

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

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

The Middle-of-the-road Policy Is Not An Economic System That Can Last. It Is A Method For The Realization Of Socialism By Installments.

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 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.

A Nation, Therefore, Has No Right To Say To A Province: You Belong To Me, I Want To Take You. A Province Consists Of Its Inhabitants. If Anybody Has A Right To Be Heard In This Case It Is These Inhabitants. Boundary Disputes Should Be Settled By Plebiscite.

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.

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.

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.

Economic Prosperity Is Not So Much A Material Problem; It Is, First Of All, An Intellectual, Spiritual, And Moral Problem.

Socialist Society Is A Society Of Officials.

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

The Most Serious Dangers For American Freedom And The American Way Of Life Do Not Come From Without.

It Is Merely A Metaphor To Call Competition Competitive War, Or Simply, War. The Function Of Battle Is Destruction; Of Competition, Construction.

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

The Truth Is That The Government Cannot Give If It Does Not Take From Somebody...it Is Not In The Power Of The Government To Make Everybody More Prosperous.

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

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

Historical Knowledge

If One Rejects Laissez Faire On Account Of Mans Fallibility And Moral Weakness, One Must For The Same Reason Also Reject Every Kind Of Government Action.

The First Thing A Genius Needs Is To Breath Free Air.

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

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

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

The Governments Alone Are Responsible For The Spread Of The Superstitious Awe With Which The Common Man Looks Upon Every Bit Of Paper Upon Which The Treasury Or Agencies Which It Controls Have Printed The Magical Words Legal Tender.

The Better An Entrepreneur Succeeds, The More Is He Vilified And Themore Is He Soaked By Taxation.

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