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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

-Ludwig Von Mises

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Nobody Ever Recommended A

Ludwig Von Mises

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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

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Reason And Action Are Congeneric And Homogenous, Two Aspects Of The Same Phenomenon.

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.

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

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.

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

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

One Day, Because They Realize For Some Reason Or Other That They Must Stop Credit Expansion, The Banks Do Stop Creating New Credit To Lend. Then The Firms That Have Expanded Cannot Get Credit To Pay For The Factors Of Production Necessary For The Completion Of The Investment Projects Which They Have Already Committed Themselves. Because They Cannot Pay Their Bills, They Sell Off Their Inventories Cheap. Then Comes The Panic, The Breakdown. And The Depression Starts.

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.

Inequality Of Wealth And Incomes Is An Essential Feature Of The Market Economy. It Is The Implement That Makes The Consumers Supreme In Giving Them The Power To Force All Those Engaged In Production To Comply With Their Orders. It Forces All Those Engaged In Production To The Utmost Exertion In The Service Of The Consumers. It Makes Competition Work. He Who Best Serves The Consumers Profits Most And Accumulates Riches.

The 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.

All Almsgiving Inevitably Tends To Pauperize The Recipient.

In Reality No Food Is Valued Solely For Its Nutritive Power And No Garment Or House Solely For The Protection It Affords Against Cold Weather And Rain.... The Demand For Goods Is Widely Influenced By Metaphysical, Religious, And Ethical Considerations, By Aesthetic Value Judgments, By Customs, Habits, Prejudice, Tradition, Changing Fashions, And Many Other Things.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Freedom And Liberty Always Mean Freedom From Police Interference.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

Under Capitalism Everybody Provides For Their Own Needs By Serving Others.

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.

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.

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

In Order To Succeed In Business A Man Does Not Need A Degree From A School Of Business Administration. These Schools Train The Subalterns For Routine Jobs. They Certainly Do Not Train Entrepreneurs.

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.

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

The School Is A Political Prize Of The Highest Importance. It Cannot Be Deprived Of Its Political Character As Long As It Remains A Public And Compulsory Institution.

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

Unintended Consequences

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

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

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

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.

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.

Every Socialist Is A Disguised Dictator.

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

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.

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

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.

Public Opinion Always Wants Easy Money, That Is, Low Interest Rates.

Under Capitalism The Common Man Enjoys Amenities Which In Ages Gone By Were Unknown And Therefore Inaccessible Even To The Richest People. But, Of Course, These Motorcars, Television Sets And Refrigerators Do Not Make A Man Happy. In The Instant In Which He Acquires Them, He May Feel Happier Than He Did Before. But As Soon As Some Of His Wishes Are Satisfied, New Wishes Spring Up. Such Is Human Nature.

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

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.

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

Capitalism Has Improved The Standard Of Living Of The Wage Earners To An Unprecedented Extent. The Average American Family Enjoys Today Amenities Of Which, Only A Hundred Years Ago, Not Even The Richest Nabobs Dreamed.

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.

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.

In Relation To The Immense Sacrifices That The State Demands Of The Individual Through The Blood Tax, It Seems Rather Incidental Whether It Compensates The Soldier More Or Less Abundantly For The Loss Of Time That He Suffers From His Military-service Obligation.

As Soon As The Economic Freedom Which The Market Economy Grants To Its Members Is Removed, All Political Liberties And Bills Of Rights Become Humbug.

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

Is Still Fulfilling Its Social Function In Supplying The Consumers With More, Better And Cheaper Goods.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Industrialization

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

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

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

To Assign To Everybody His Proper Place In Society Is The Task Of The Consumers. Their Buying And Abstention From Buying Is Instrumental In Determining Each Individual's Social Position.

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.

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

The Distinctive Principle Of Western Social Philosophy Is Individualism.

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

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.

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

Fortunes Cannot Grow; Someone Has To Increase Them.

The Boom Is Called Good Business, Prosperity, And Upswing. Its Unavoidable Aftermath, The Readjustment Of Conditions To The Real Data Of The Market, Is Called Crisis, Slump, Bad Business, Depression.

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.

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

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

All This Talk: The State Should Do This Or That, Ultimately Means: The Police Should Force Consumers To Behave Otherwise Than They Would Behave Spontaneously.

[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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The System That Would Stand Midway Between Capitalism And Socialism.

Capitalism And Socialism

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Living Is Not Perfect Because It Is Liable To Change; The Dead Is Not Perfect Because It Does Not Live.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Human Action Is Purposeful Behavior.

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

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

Historical Knowledge

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

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.

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.

If It Is Unnecessary To Adjust The Amount Of Expenditure To The Means Available, There Is No Limit To The Spending Of The Great God State.

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.

Monetary Calculation Is Not The Calculation, And Certainly Not The Measurement, Of Value. Its Basis Is The Comparison Of The More Important And The Less Important. It Is An Ordering According To Rank, An Act Of Grading (cuhel), And Not An Act Of Measuring. It Was A Mistake To Search For A Measure Of The Value Of Goods. In The Last Analysis, Economic Calculation Does Not Rest On The Measurement Of Values, But On Their Arrangement In An Order Of Rank.

Every Restriction Of Trade Creates Vested Interests That Are From Then On Opposed To Its Removal.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

Under Capitalism Everybody Is The Architect Of His Own Fortune.

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

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

There Can Be No Freedom In Art And Literature Where The Government Determines Who Shall Create Them.

Despots And Democratic Majorities Are Drunk With Power.

Keynes Did Not Teach Us How To Perform The Miracle Of Turning A Stone Into Bread, But The Not At All Miraculous Procedure Of Eating The Seed Corn.

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

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.

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

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

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

Many Who Are Self-taught Far Excel The Doctors, Masters, And Bachelors Of The Most Renowned Universities.

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 Marxians Love Of Democratic Institutions Was A Stratagem Only, A Pious Fraud For The Deception Of The Masses. Within A Socialist Community There Is No Room Left For Freedom.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

Whoever Wishes Peace Among Peoples Must Fight Statism.

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

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.

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

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

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

The [liberals] Consider Profits As Objectionable. The Very Existence Of Profits Is In Their Eyes A Proof That Wage Rates Could Be Raised Without Harm To Anybody. They Speak Of Profit Without Dealing With Loss. Profit And Loss Are The Instruments By Means Of Which The Consumers Keep A Tight Rein On All Business Activities. A Profitable Enterprise Tends To Expand; An Unprofitable One Tends To Shrink. The Elimination Of Profit Renders Production Rigid And Abolishes The Consumer's Control.

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

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.

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

In Talking About Equality And Asking Vehemently For Its Realization, Nobody Advocates A Curtailment Of His Own Present Income.

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.

Peace And Not War Is The Father Of All Things.

Mankind Does Not Drink Alcohol Because There Are Breweries, Distilleries, And Vineyards; Men Brew Beer, Distill Spirits, And Grow Grapes Because Of The Demand For Alcoholic Drinks.

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

Economic Progress Is The Work Of The Savers, Who Accumulate Capital, And Of The Entrepreneurs, Who Turn Capital To New Uses.

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

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

The Alcoholic And The Drug Addict Harm Only Themselves By Their Behavior; The Person Who Violates The Rules Of Morality Governing Mans Life In Society Harms Not Only Himself, But Everyone.

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

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.

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.

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

The Gold Standard Makes The Money's Purchasing Power Independent Of The Changing, Ambitions And Doctrines Of Political Parties And Pressure Groups. This Is Not A Defect Of The Gold Standard; It Is Its Main Excellence.

Every Extension Of The Functions And Power Of The State Beyond Its Primary Duty Of Maintaining Peace And Justice Should Be Scrutinized With Jealous Vigilance.

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.

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

Continued Inflation Inevitably Leads To Catastrophe.

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

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

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!

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.

Pressure Groups

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

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

Against Nature And Within Nature There Is No Freedom.

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.

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

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.

Inflationism, However, Is Not An Isolated Phenomenon. It Is Only One Piece In The Total Framework Of Politico-economic And Socio-philosophical Ideas Of Our Time. Just As The Sound Money Policy Of Gold Standard Advocates Went Hand In Hand With Liberalism, Free Trade, Capitalism And Peace, So Is Inflationism Part And Parcel Of Imperialism, Militarism, Protectionism, Statism And Socialism.

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

No One Can Escape The Influence Of A Prevailing Ideology.

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

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 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.

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Mikhail Kalashnikov

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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