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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.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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Man Is Born An

Ludwig Von Mises

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Essential Characteristic Of Western Civilization That Distinguishes It From The Arrested And Petrified Civilizations Of The East Was And Is Its Concern For Freedom From The State.

Society Is Joint Action And Cooperation In Which Each Participant Sees The Other Partner's Success As A Means For The Attainment Of His Own.

The Inequality Of Income And Fortunes Is Essential In Capitalism.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Seen From The Point Of View Of The Particular Group Interests Of The Bureaucrats, Every Measure That Makes The Government's Payroll Swell Is Progress.

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.

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.

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 Boom Squanders Through Malinvestment Scarce Factors Of Production And Reduces The Stock Available Through Overconsumption; Its Alleged Blessings Are Paid For By Impoverishment.

Overconsumption

Factors Of Production

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Governments, Political Parties, Pressure Groups, And The Bureaucrats Of The Educational Hierarchy Think They Can Avoid The Inevitable Consequences Of Unsuitable Measures By Boycotting And Silencing The Independent Economists. But Truth Persists And Works, Even If Nobody Is Left To Utter It.

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

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.

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.

The Bureaucrat Is Not Free To Aim At Improvement. He Is Bound To Obey Rules And Regulations Established By A Superior Body. He Has No Right To Embark Upon Innovations If His Superiors Do Not Approve Of Them. His Duty And His Virtue Is To Be Obedient.

Rules And Regulations

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

This, Then, Is Freedom In The External Life Of Man-that He Is Independent Of The Arbitrary Power Of His Fellows.

Progressive Taxation Of Income And Profits Means That Precisely Those Parts Of The Income Which People Would Have Saved And Invested Are Taxed Away

Progressive Taxation

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.

To The Grumbler Who Complains About The Unfairness Of The Market System Only One Piece Of Advice Can Be Given: If You Want To Acquire Wealth, Then Try To Satisfy The Public By Offering Them Something That Is Cheaper Or Which They Like Better....equality Under The Law Gives You The Power To Challenge Every Millionaire.

Equality Under The Law

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

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

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

Continued Inflation Inevitably Leads To Catastrophe.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The History Of Mankind Is The History Of Ideas.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Under Capitalism Everybody Is The Architect Of His Own Fortune.

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

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

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 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.

Against Nature And Within Nature There Is No Freedom.

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.

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

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

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

Division Of Labor

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

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.

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

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

Unintended Consequences

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

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.

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 Tow Pillars Of Democratic Government Are The Primacy Of The Law And The Budget.

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

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.

The Attainment Of The Economic Aims Of Man Presupposes Peace.

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

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

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.

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

Peace And Not War Is The Father Of All Things.

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.

Liberty Is Always Freedom From The Government.

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

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

The 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.

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

Human Action Is Purposeful Behavior.

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

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.

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

The 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.

The Market And Its Inescapable Law Are Supreme.

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

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

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

In The Socialist Commonwealth Every Economic Change Becomes An Undertaking Whose Success Can Be Neither Appraised In Advance Nor Later Retrospectively Determined. There Is Only Groping In The Dark. Socialism Is The Abolition Of Rational Economy.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

The Santa Claus Principle Liquidates Itself.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 .

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

Freedom And Liberty Always Mean Freedom From Police Interference.

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

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.

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

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

Economically Considered, War And Revolution Are Always Bad Business.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The Unprecedented Success Of Keynesianism Is Due To The Fact That It Provides An Apparent Justification For The 'deficit Spending' Policies Of Contemporary Governments. It Is The Pseudo-philosophy Of Those Who Can Think Of Nothing Else Than To Dissipate The Capital Accumulated By Previous Generations.

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

Every Step By Which An Individual Substitutes Concerted Action For Isolated Action Results In An Immediate And Recognizable Improvement In His Conditions. The Advantages Derived From Peaceful Cooperation And Division Of Labor Are Universal.

Division Of Labor

Every Socialist Is A Disguised Dictator.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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 Continued Existence Of Society Depends Upon Private Property.

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

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

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

Division Of Labor

The 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.

The Elimination Of Profit, Whatever Methods May Be Resorted To For Its Execution, Must Transform Society Into A Senseless Jumble. It Would Create Poverty For All.

Whoever Wishes Peace Among Peoples Must Fight Statism.

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

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.

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

Socialism Is The Renunciation Of Rational Economy.

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.

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

Government Is Essentially The Negation Of Liberty.

The Salesman Thanks The Customer For Patronizing His Shop And Asks Him To Come Again. But The Socialists Say: Be Grateful To Hitler, Render Thanks To Stalin; Be Nice And Submissive, Then The Great Man Will Be Kind To You Later Too.

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

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

The Body Of Economic Knowledge Is An Essential Element In The Structure Of Human Civilization; It Is The Foundation Upon Which Modern Industrialism And All The Moral, Intellectual, Technological, And Therapeutical Achievements Of The Last Centuries Have Been Built.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The Whole Of Mankind's Progress Has Had To Be Achieved Against The Resistance And Opposition Of The State And Its Power Of Coercion.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Competition On The Market Aims At Assigning To Every Individual That Function In The Social System In Which He Can Render To All His Fellow Men The Most Valuable Of The Services He Is Able To Perform.

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.

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.

Experience Shows That Nothing Is Operated With Less Economy And With More Waste Of Labor And Material Of Every Kind Than Public Services And Undertakings. Private Enterprise On The Other Hand Naturally Induces The Owner To Work With The Greatest Economy In His Own Interest.

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

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

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

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.

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

The 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.

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

The 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.

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

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

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

Taxing Profits Is Tantamount To Taxing Success.

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.

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