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

-Ludwig Von Mises

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It Is True That

Ludwig Von Mises

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

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Pressure Groups

More From Ludwig Von Mises

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.

Capital Does Not 'beget Profit' As Marx Thought. The Capital Goods As Such Are Dead Things That In Themselves Do Not Accomplish Anything. If They Are Utilized According To A Good Idea, Profit Results. If They Are Utilized According To A Mistaken Idea, No Profit Or Losses Result. It Is The Entrepreneurial Decision That Creates Either Profit Or Loss.

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

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.

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.

The Meaning Of Economic Freedom Is This: That The Individual Is In A Position To Choose The Way In Which He Wants To Integrate Himself Into The Totality Of Society.

Human Action Is Purposeful Behavior.

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.

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.

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

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

The Socialist System, However, Forbids This Fundamental Freedom To Choose One's Own Career. Under Socialist Conditions, There Is Only One Economic Authority, And It Has The Right To Determine All Matters Concerning Production.

Nobody Ever Recommended A Dictatorship Aiming At Ends Other Than Those He Himself Approved. He Who Advocates Dictatorship Always Advocates The Unrestricted Rule Of His Own Will

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

If You Increase The Quantity Of Money, You Bring About The Lowering Of The Purchasing Power Of The Monetary Unit.

Purchasing Power

In The Long Run Even The Most Despotic Governments With All Their Brutality And Cruelty Are No Match For Ideas. Eventually The Ideology That Has Won The Support Of The Majority Will Prevail And Cut The Ground From Under The Tyrant's Feet. Then The Oppressed Many Will Rise In Rebellion And Overthrow Their Masters.

If History Could Prove And Teach Us Anything, It Would Be The Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production As A Necessary Requisite Of Civilization And Material Well-being. All Civilizations Have Up To Now Been Based On Private Property. Only Nations Committed To The Principle Of Private Property Have Risen Above Penury And Produced Science, Art, And Literature. There Is No Experience To Show That Any Other Social System Could Provide Mankind With Any Of The Achievements Of Civilization.

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.

Capitalism Is Essentially A System Of Mass Production For The Satisfaction Of The Needs Of The Masses. It Pours A Horn Of Plenty Upon The Common Man. It Has Raised The Average Standard Of Living To A Height Never Dreamed Of In Earlier Ages. It Has Made Accessible To Millions Of People Enjoyments Which A Few Generations Ago Were Only Within The Reach Of A Small élite.

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.

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

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.

There Is No Remedy For The Inefficiency Of Public Management.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

[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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

All People, However Fanatical They May Be In Their Zeal To Disparage And To Fight Capitalism, Implicitly Pay Homage To It By Passionately Clamoring For The Products It Turns Out

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

The 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.

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

What Pays Under Capitalism Is Satisfying The Common Man, The Customer. The More People You Satisfy, The Better For You.

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 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.

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

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.

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.'

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

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

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

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.

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

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

There Is, In Fact, Only One Solution: The State, The Government, The Laws Must Not In Any Way Concern Themselves With Schooling Or Education. Public Funds Must Not Be Used For Such Purposes. The Rearing And Instruction Of Youth Must Be Left Entirely To Parents And To Private Associations And Institutions

The Market System Makes All Producers Responsible To The Consumer.

We Must Fight All That We Dislike In Public Life. We Must Substitute Better Ideas For Wrong Ideas.

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

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.

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

Nobody Is In A Position To Decree What Should Make A Fellow Man Happier.

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.

No Private Enterprise Will Ever Fall Prey To Bureaucratic Methods Of Management If It Is Operated With The Sole Aim Of Making Profit.

The Philosophy Of Protectionism Is A Philosophy Of War. The Wars Of Our Age Are Not At Variance With Popular Economic Doctrines; They Are, On The Contrary, The Inescapable Result Of A Consistent Application Of These Doctrines.

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

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

General Welfare

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

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.

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

Economic Knowledge Necessarily Leads To Liberalism

Used To The Conditions Of A Capitalistic Environment, The Average American Takes It For Granted That Every Year Business Makes Something New And Better Accessible To Him. Looking Backward Upon The Years Of His Own Life, He Realizes That Many Implements That Were Totally Unknown In The Days Of His Youth And Many Others Which At That Time Could Be Enjoyed Only By A Small Minority Are Now Standard Equipment Of Almost Every Household.

The Characteristic Feature Of Militarism Is Not The Fact That A Nation Has A Powerful Army Or Navy. It Is The Paramount Role Assigned To The Army Within The Political Structure. Even In Peacetime The Army Is Supreme; It Is The Predominant Factor In Political Life. The Subjects Must Obey The Government As Soldiers Must Obey Their Superiors. Within A Militarist Community There Is No Freedom; There Are Only Obedience And Discipline.

An Entrepreneur Cannot Be Trained. A Man Becomes And Entrepreneur By Seizing An Opportunity And Filling The Gap. No Special Education Is Required For Such A Display Of Keen Judgment, Foresight, And Energy.

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

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

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.

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.

The Prevailing Legal And Moral Views Of A Time Are Held Not Only By Those Whom They Benefit But By Those, Too, Who Appear To Suffer From Them. Their Domination Is Expressed In That Fact- That The People From Whom They Claim Sacrifice Accept Them.

Business Is A Means- The Only Means- To Increase The Quantity Of Goods Available For Preserving Life And Rendering It More Agreeable.

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.

No Very Deep Knowledge Of Economics Is Usually Needed For Grasping The Immediate Effects Of A Measure; But The Task Of Economics Is To Foretell The Remoter Effects, And So To Allow Us To Avoid Such Acts As Attempt To Remedy A Present Ill By Sowing The Seeds Of A Much Greater Ill For The Future.

Inflation Is Essentially Antidemocratic.

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.

Against Nature And Within Nature There Is No Freedom.

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

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.

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.

The Liberals Of The Eighteenth Century, Guided By The Ideas Of Natural Law And Of The Enlightenment, Demanded For Everyone Equality Of Political And Civil Rights... Nothing, However, Is As Ill-founded As The Assertion Of The Alleged Equality Of All Members Of The Human Race.

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

In A Game There Are Winners And Losers. But A Business Deal Is Always Advantageous For Both Parties. If Both The Buyer And The Seller Were Not To Consider The Transaction As The Most Advantageous Action They Could Choose Under The Prevailing Conditions, They Would Not Enter Into The Deal.

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

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.

All That Lenin Learned About Business From The Tales Of His Comrades Who Occasionally Sat In Business Offices Was That It Required A Lot Of Scribbling, Recording, And Ciphering. Thus, He Declares That Accounting And Control Are The Chief Things Necessary For The Organizing And Correct Functioning Of Society. . . . Here We Have The Philosophy Of The Filing Clerk In Its Full Glory.

We Do Not Assert That The Capitalist Mode Of Economic Calculation Guarantees The Absolutely Best Solution Of The Allocation Of Factors Of Production. Such Absolutely Perfect Solutions Of Any Problem Are Out Of Reach Of Mortal Men. What The Operation Of A Market Not Sabotaged By The Interference Of Compulsion And Coercion Can Bring About Is Merely The Best Solution Accessible To The Human Mind Under The Given State Of Technological Knowledge And The Intellectual Abilities Of The Age's Shrewdest Men.

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

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.

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

Government Is An Apparatus Of Compulsion And Coercion.

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.

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

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.

Whether We Like It Or Not, It Is A Fact That Economics Cannot Remain An Esoteric Branch Of Knowledge Accessible Only To Small Groups Of Scholars And Specialists. Economics Deals With Society's Fundamental Problems; It Concerns Everyone And Belongs To All. It Is The Main And Proper Study Of Every Citizen.

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

What Economic Calculation Requires Is A Monetary System Whose Functioning Is Not Sabotaged By Government Interference.

Monetary System

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

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

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

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.

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.

Credit Expansion Can Bring About A Temporary Boom. But Such A Fictitious Prosperity Must End In A General Depression Of Trade, A Slump.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

The Distinctive Principle Of Western Social Philosophy Is Individualism.

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.

It Is Vain To Fight Totalitarianism By Adopting Totalitarian Methods. Freedom Can Only Be Won By Men Unconditionally Committed To The Principles Of Freedom. The First Requisite For A Better Social Order Is The Return To Unrestricted Freedom Of Thought And Speech.

Socialism In Russia Has Not Brought About An Improvement In The Conditions Of The Average Man Which Can Be Compared With The Improvement Of Conditions, During The Same Period, In The United States.

Liberalism Must Be Intolerant Of Every Sort Of Intolerance.

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

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

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

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.

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

What Can Prevent The Coming Of Totalitarian Socialism Is Only A Thorough Change In Ideologies. What We Need Is An Open Positive Endorsement Of That System To Which We Owe All The Wealth That Distinguished Our Age From The Conditions Of Ages Gone By.

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 System That Would Stand Midway Between Capitalism And Socialism.

Capitalism And Socialism

A Short Time Ago The Demagogues Blamed Capitalism For The Poverty Of The Masses. Today They Rather Blame Capitalism For The "affluence" That It Bestows Upon The Common Man.

Fortunes Cannot Grow; Someone Has To Increase Them.

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.

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 Flowering Of Human Society Depends On Two Factors: The Intellectual Power Of Outstanding Men To Conceive Sound Social And Economic Theories, And The Ability Of These Or Other Men To Make These Ideologies Palatable To The Majority.

The Idea Of Socialism Is At Once Grandiose And Simple. . .we May Say, In Fact, That It Is One Of The Most Ambitious Creations Of The Human Spirit, . . .so Magnificent, So Daring, That It Has Rightly Aroused The Greatest Admiration. If We Wish To Save The World From Barbarism We Have To Refute Socialism, But We Cannot Thrust It Carelessly Aside.

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

Government Is Essentially The Negation Of Liberty.

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

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

The History Of Mankind Is The History Of Ideas.

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

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

Government Means Always Coercion And Compulsion And Is By Necessity The Opposite Of Liberty. Government Is A Guarantor Of Liberty And Is Compatible With Liberty Only If Its Range Is Adequately Restricted To The Preservation Of Economic Freedom. Where There Is No Market Economy, The Best-intentioned Provisions Of Constitutions And Laws Remain A Dead Letter.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

In The World Of Reality, Life, And Human Action There Is No Such Thing As Interests Independent Of Ideas, Preceding Them Temporarily And Logically. What A Man Considers His Interest Is The Result Of His Ideas.

The Main Achievement Of Economics Is That It Has Provided A Theory Of Peaceful Human Cooperation. This Is Why The Harbingers Of Violent Conflict Have Branded It As A Dismal Science And Why This Age Of Wars, Civil Wars, And Destruction Has No Use For It.

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.

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

Whoever Wishes Peace Among Peoples Must Fight Statism.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Main Characteristic Of Collectivism Is That It Does Not Take Notice Of The Individual's Will And Moral Self-determination. In The Light Of Its Philosophy The Individual Is Born Into A Collective And It Is "natural" And Proper For Him To Behave As Members Of This Collective Are Expected To Behave. Expected By Whom? Of Course, By Those Individuals To Whom, By The Mysterious Decrees Of Some Mysterious Agency, The Task Of Determining The Collective Will And Directing The Actions Of The Collective Has Been Entrusted.

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 Government Pretends To Be Endowed With The Mystical Power To Accord Favors Out Of An Inexhaustible Horn Of Plenty. It Is Both Omniscient And Omnipotent. It Can By A Magic Wand Create Happiness And Abundance. The Truth Is The Government Cannot Give If It Does Not Take From Somebody.

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.

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.

[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.

Manufacturing And Commercial Monopolies Owe Their Origin Not To A Tendency Imminent In A Capitalist Economy But To Governmental Interventionist Policy Directed Against Free Trade And Laissez Faire.

Capitalist Economy

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Industrialization

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

The Struggle For Freedom Is Ultimately Not Resistance To Autocrats Or Oligarchs But Resistance To The Despotism Of Public Opinion.

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.

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

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

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

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Marguerite Duras

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