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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.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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It Is Important To

Ludwig Von Mises

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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.

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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.

The Most Successful Businessmen Were Often Uneducated When Measured By The Scholastic Standards Of The Teaching Profession. But They Were Equal To Their Social Function Of Adjusting Production To The Most Urgent Demand. Because Of These Merits The Consumers Chose Them For Business Leadership.

The State Is The Only Institution Entitled To Apply Coercion And Compulsion And To Inflict Harm Upon Individuals. This Tremendous Power Cannot Be Abandoned To The Discretion Of Some Men, However Competent And Clever They May Deem Themselves. It Is Necessary To Restrict Its Application. This Is The Task Of The Laws.

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.

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 Allows Other Forces To Arise Side By Side With And In Opposition To Political Power. It Thus Becomes The Basis Of All Those Activities That Are Free From Violent Interference On The Part Of The State. It Is The Soil In Which The Seeds Of Freedom Are Nurtured And In Which The Autonomy Of The Individual And Ultimately All Intellectual And Material Progress Are Rooted.

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.

All The Talk About The So-called Unspeakable Horror Of Early Capitalism Can Be Refuted By A Single Statistic: Precisely In These Years In Which British Capitalism Developed, Precisely In The Age Called The Industrial Revolution In England, In The Years From 1760 To 1830, Precisely In Those Years The Population Of England Doubled.

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

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

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

A Lasting Order Cannot Be Established By Bayonets.

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.

There Is An Inherent Tendency In All Governmental Power To Recognize No Restraints On Its Operation And To Extend The Sphere Of Its Dominion As Much As Possible. To Control Everything, To Leave No Room For Anything To Happen Of Its Own Accord Without The Interference Of The Authorities--th Is Is The Goal For Which Every Ruler Secretly Strives.

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.

The Philosophy Of Protectionism Is A Philosophy Of War.

If Men Do Not Now Succeed In Abolishing War, Civilization And Mankind Are Doomed.

Continued Adherence To A Policy Of Compulsory Education Is Utterly Incompatible With Efforts To Establish Lasting Peace.

Human Action Is Purposeful Behavior.

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

Unemployment Doles Can Have No Other Effect Than The Perpetuation Of Unemployment.

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.

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.

War Is Harmful, Not Only To The Conquered But To The Conqueror. Society Has Arisen Out Of The Works Of Peace; The Essence Of Society Is Peacemaking. Peace And Not War Is The Father Of All Things. Only Economic Action Has Created The Wealth Around Us; Labor, Not The Profession Of Arms, Brings Happiness. Peace Builds, War Destroys.

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

The Supremacy Of Public Opinion Determines Not Only The Singular Role That Economics Occupies In The Complex Of Thought And Knowledge. It Determines The Whole Process Of Human History.

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

It Is Inherent In The Nature Of The Capitalistic Economy That, In The Final Analysis, The Employment Of The Factors Of Production Is Aimed Only Toward Serving The Wishes Of Consumers.

We Owe The Origin And Development Of Human Society And, Consequently, Of Culture And Civilization, To The Fact That Work Performed Under The Division Of Labor Is More Productive Than When Performed In Isolation.

Division Of Labor

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.

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

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.

Economic Knowledge Necessarily Leads To Liberalism

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

Historical Knowledge

Inflation Is Essentially Antidemocratic.

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

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

If The Present American Laws Concerning The Taxation Of The Profits Of Corporations, The Incomes Of Individuals, And Inheritances Had Been Introduced About 60 Years Ago, All Those New Products Whose Consumption Has Raised The Standard Of Living Of The 'common Man' Would Either Not Be Produced At All Or Only In Small Quantities For The Benefit Of A Minority. The Ford Enterprises Would Not Exist If Henry Ford's Profits Had Been Taxed Away As Soon As They Came Into Being.

Every Socialist Is A Disguised Dictator.

The Characteristic Mark Of This Age Of Dictators, Wars And Revolutions Is Its Anticapitalistic Bias. Most Governments And Political Parties Were Eager To Restrict The Sphere Of Private Initiative And Free Enterprise.

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.

Both Force And Money Are Impotent Against Ideas.

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

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.

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.

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

Professor Von Mises Has A Splendid Analytical Mind And An Admirable Passion For Liberty; But As A Student Of Human Nature He Is Worse Than Null And As A Debater He Is Of Hyde Park Standard.

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.

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.

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

Capital Is Not A Free Gift Of God Or Of Nature. It Is The Outcome Of A Provident Restriction Of Consumption On The Part Of Man. It Is Created And Increased By Saving And Maintained By The Abstention From Dissaving.

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.

Socialism Is The Renunciation Of Rational Economy.

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

General Welfare

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.

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.

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

No Architect Is Held Responsible For The Behavior Of Those Who Inhabit The Structure He Designed.

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

History Can Tell Us What Happened In The Past. But It Cannot Assert That It Must Happen Again In The Future.

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.

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.

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

Man Is Not, Like The Animals, An Obsequious Puppet Of Instincts And Sensual Impulses. Man Has The Power To Suppress Instinctive Desires, He Has A Will Of His Own, He Chooses Between Incompatible Ends.

The Advocates Of Public Control Cannot Do Without Inflation. They Need It In Order To Finance Their Policy Of Reckless Spending And Of Lavishly Subsidizing And Bribing The Voters.

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.

If History Could Teach Us Anything, It Would Be That Private Property Is Inextricably Linked With Civilization.

The Average American Worker Enjoys Amenities For Which Croesus, Crassus, The Medici, And Louis Xiv Would Have Envied Him.

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.

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.

The Characteristic Mark Of Economic History Under Capitalism Is Unceasing Economic Progress, A Steady Increase In The Quantity Of Capital Goods Available, And A Continuous Trend Toward An Improvement In The General Standard Of Living.

Economic History

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.

If We Live Our Lives As A Gift It Is Possible To Reach A Blissful State Of Eternal Happiness. It Is Those Who Live Their Life With A Sense Of Entitlement That Undermine Peace , Freedom And Liberty. Know That Every Breath Is A Miracle And Every Moment A Blessing And You Will Achieve Your Dreams. 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

The Attainment Of The Economic Aims Of Man Presupposes Peace.

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.

Men Are Fighting One Another Because They Are Convinced That The Extermination And Liquidation Of Adversaries Is The Only Means Of Promoting Their Own Well-being.

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.

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.'

War...is Harmful, Not Only To The Conquered But To The Conqueror.

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

The Public Firm Can Nowhere Maintain Itself In Free Competition With The Private Firm; It Is Possible Today Only Where It Has A Monopoly That Excludes Competition. Even That Alone Is Evidence Of Its Lesser Economic Productivity.

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.

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

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

Rules And Regulations

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

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 .

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.

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.

Socialist Society Is A Society Of Officials.

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.

What Is Lacking To The Underdeveloped Nations Is Not Knowledge, But Capital.

The System That Would Stand Midway Between Capitalism And Socialism.

Capitalism And Socialism

Nothing, However, Is As Ill Founded As The Assertion Of The Alleged Equality Of All Members Of The Human Race.

The Capitalist System Was Termed "capitalism" Not By A Friend Of The System, But By An Individual Who Considered It To Be The Worst Of All Historical Systems, The Greatest Evil That Had Ever Befallen Mankind. That Man Was Karl Marx.

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 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.

He Who Serves The Public Best, Makes The Highest Profits.

Despots And Democratic Majorities Are Drunk With Power.

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 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.

The Vigorous Man Industriously Striving For The Improvement Of His Condition Acts Neither More Nor Less Than The Lethargic Man Who Sluggishly Takes Things As They Come. For To Do Nothing And To Be Idle Are Also Action, They Too Determine The Course Of Events.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

It Cannot Be Denied That Fascism And Similar Movements Aiming At The Establishment Of Dictatorships Are Full Of The Best Intentions And That Their Intervention Has, For The Moment, Saved European Civilization. The Merit That Fascism Has Thereby Won For Itself Will Live On Eternally In History.

Freedom And Liberty Always Mean Freedom From Police Interference.

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.

The Santa Claus Principle Liquidates Itself.

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.

Economically Considered, War And Revolution Are Always Bad Business.

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.

Continued Inflation Inevitably Leads To Catastrophe.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Mark Of The Creative Mind Is That It Defies A Part Of What It Has Learned.

Economics Is A Theoretical Science And As Such Abstains From Any Judgement Of Value. It Is Not Its Task To Tell People What Ends They Should Aim At. It Is A Science Of The Means To Be Applied For Attainment Of Ends Chosen, Not, To Be Sure, A Science Of The Choosing Of Ends. Ultimate Decisions, The Valuations And The Choosing Of Ends, Are Beyond The Scope Of Any Science. Science Never Tells A Man How He Should Act; It Merely Shows How A Man Must Act If He Wants To Attain Definite Ends.

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

As Society Is Only Possible If Everyone, While Living His Own Life, At The Same Time Helps Others To Live; If Every Individual Is Simultaneously Means And End; If Each Individual's Well-being Is Simultaneously The Condition Necessary To The Well-being Of Others, It Is Evident That The Contrast Between I And Thou, Means And End, Automatically Is Overcome.

What Makes The Existence And The Evolution Of Society Possible Is Precisely The Fact That Peaceful Cooperation Under The Social Division Of Labor In The Long Run Best Serves The Selfish Concerns Of All Individuals. The Eminence Of The Market Society Is That Its Whole Functioning And Operation Is The Consummation Of This Principle.

Division Of Labor

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

It Is Certain That Many Intellectuals Envy The Higher Income Of Prosperous Businessmen And That These Feelings Drive Them Toward Socialism. They Believe That The Authorities Of A Socialist Commonwealth Would Pay Them Higher Salaries Than Those That They Earn Under Capitalism.

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

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 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 Government Intervention [in The Marketplace] Creates Unintended Consequences, Which Lead To Calls For Further Government Interventions.

Unintended Consequences

No One Can Escape The Influence Of A Prevailing Ideology.

Liberty Is Always Freedom From The Government.

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.

One Has To Recognize That Science Is Not Metaphysics, And Certainly Not Mysticism; It Can Never Bring Us The Illumination And The Satisfaction Experienced By One Enraptured In Ecstasy. Science Is Sobriety And Clarity Of Conception, Not Intoxicated Vision.

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

Reason's Biological Function Is To Preserve And Promote Life And To Postpone Its Extinction As Long As Possible. Thinking And Acting Are Not Contrary To Nature; They Are, Rather, The Foremost Features Of Man's Nature. The Most Appropriate Description Of Man As Differentiated From Nonhuman Beings Is: A Being Purposively Struggling Against The Forces Adverse To His Life.

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

If, As Is Generally The Case, The Heirs Are Not Equal To The Demands Which Life Makes On An Entrepreneur, The Inherited Wealth Rapidly Vanishes.

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

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

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

Capitalism And Socialism Are Two Distinct Patterns Of Social Organization. Private Control Of The Means Of Production And Public Control Are Contradictory Notions And Not Merely Contrary Notions. There Is No Such Thing As A Mixed Economy, A System That Would Stand Midway Between Capitalism And Socialism.

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.

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

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

Whoever Wishes Peace Among Peoples Must Fight Statism.

Against Nature And Within Nature There Is No Freedom.

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

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 Masses, In Their Capacity As Consumers, Ultimately Determine Everybody's Revenues And Wealth.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Man Is Born An Asocial And Antisocial Being. The Newborn Child Is A Savage. Egoism Is His Nature. Only The Experience Of Life And The Teachings Of His Parents, His Brothers, Sisters, Playmates, And Later Of Other People Force Him To Acknowledge The Advantages Of Social Cooperation And Accordingly To Change His Behavior.

All Attempts To Coerce The Living Will Of Human Beings Into The Service Of Something They Do Not Want Must Fail

In All Countries With A Settled Bureaucracy People Used To Say: The Cabinets Come And Go, But The Bureaus Remain.

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

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

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.

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

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 Root Of The Evil Is Not The Construction Of New, More Dreadful Weapons. It Is The Spirit Of Conquest.

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

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.

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.

He Who Only Wishes And Hopes Does Not Interfere Actively With The Course Of Events And With The Shaping Of His Own Destiny.

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

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.

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

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

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

If You Give The Government The Right To Determine The Consumption Of The Human Body, To Determine Whether One Should Smoke Or Not Smoke, Drink Or Not Drink, There Is No Good Reply You Can Give To People Who Say, More Important Than The Body Is The Mind And The Soul, And Man Hurts Himself Much More By Reading Bad Books, By Listening To Bad Music And Looking At Bad Movies. Therefore It Is The Duty Of The Government To Prevent People From Committing Those Faults. And, As You Know, For Many Hundreds Of Years Governments And Authorities Velieved That It Was Their Duty.

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

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.

The Aim Of All Struggles For Liberty Is To Keep In Bounds The Armed Defenders Of Peace, The Governors And Their Constables. The Political Concept Of The Individual's Freedom Means: Freedom From Arbitrary Action On The Part Of The Police Power.

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

The Worst Evils Which Mankind Has Ever Had To Endure Were Inflicted By Bad Governments.

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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