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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.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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Plato And Hitler Were

Ludwig Von Mises

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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.

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To The Masses, The Catchwords Of Socialism Sound So Enticing... So They Will Continue To Work For Socialism, Helping Thereby To Bring About The Inevitable Decline Of The Civilization Which The Nations Of The West Have Taken Thousands Of Years To Build Up.

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.

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.

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.

A Lasting Order Cannot Be Established By Bayonets.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The Planner Is A Potential Dictator Who Wants To Deprive All Other People Of The Power To Plan And Act According To Their Own Plans. He Aims At One Thing Only: The Exclusive Absolute Preeminence Of His Own Plan.

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

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.

Depression Is The Aftermath Of Credit Expansion.

Welfare Policies Never Attain Those - Allegedly Beneficial - Ends Which The Government And The Self-styled Progressives Who Advocated Them Wanted To Attain, But - On The Contrary - Bring About A State Of Affairs Which - From The Very Point Of View Of The Government And Its Supporters - Is Even More Unsatisfactory Than The Previous State Of Affairs They Wanted To 'improve.'

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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 Word "capitalism" Expresses, For Our Age, The Sum Of All Evil. Even The Opponents Of Socialism Are Dominated By Socialist Ideas.

Inflation Is The True Opium Of The People And It Is Administered To Them By Anticapitalist Governments And Parties.

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.

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

Changes In Human Conditions Are Brought About By The Pioneering Of The Cleverest And Most Energetic Men. They Take The Lead And The Rest Of Mankind Follows Them Little By Little.

Human Condition

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.

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.

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

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

Civilization Is A Work Of Peaceful Co-operation.

Both Force And Money Are Impotent Against Ideas.

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.

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

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

Rules And Regulations

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

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

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

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

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.

Liberty Is Always Freedom From The Government.

The Riches Of Successful Entrepreneurs Is Not The Cause Of Anybody's Poverty; It Is The Consequence Of The Fact That The Consumers Are Better Supplied Than They Would Have Been In The Absence Of The Entrepreneur's Efforts.

The Real Bosses In The Capitalist System Of Market Economy Are The Consumers. They By Their Buying And By Their Abstention From Buying Decide Who Should Own The Capital And Run The Plants. They Determine What Should Be Produced And In What Quantity And Quality. Their Attitudes Result Either In Profit Or In Loss For The Enterpriser. They Make Poor Men Rich And Rich Men Poor. They Are No Easy Bosses.

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

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

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.

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

Action Based On Reason, Action Therefore Which Is Only To Be Understood By Reason, Knows Only One End, The Greatest Pleasure Of The Acting Individual.

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.

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

Under The Gold Standard Gold Is Money And Money Is Gold. It Is Immaterial Whether Or Not The Laws Assign Legal Tender Quality Only To Gold Coins Minted By The Government.

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.

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

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

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.

[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

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.

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.

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

General Welfare

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

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

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

The Men Who Are To Protect The Community Against Violent Aggression Easily Turn Into The Most Dangerous Aggressors. They Transgress Their Mandate. They Misuse Their Power For The Oppression Of Those Whom They Were Expected To Defend Against Oppression. The Main Political Problem Is How To Prevent The Police Power From Becoming Tyrannical. This Is The Meaning Of All The Struggles For Liberty.

Government Cannot Make Man Richer, But It Can Make Him Poorer.

The Market Economy Is The Social System Of The Division Of Labor Under Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production. Everybody Acts On His Own Behalf; But Everybodys Actions Aim At The Satisfaction Of Other Peoples Needs As Well As At The Satisfaction Of His Own. Everybody In Acting Serves His Fellow Citizens.

Division Of Labor

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Permanent Mass Unemployment Destroys The Moral Foundations Of The Social Order. The Young People, Who, Having Finished Their Training For Work, Are Forced To Remain Idle, Are The Ferment Out Of Which The Most Radical Political Movements Are Formed. In Their Ranks The Soldiers Of The Coming Revolutions Are Recruited.

You Know That The Population Is Of This Planet Is Now Ten Times Greater Than It Was In The Ages Preceding Capitalism.; You Know That All Men Today Enjoy A Higher Standard Of Living Than Your Ancestors Did Before The Age Of Capitalism. But How Do You Know That You Are The One Out Of Ten Who Would Have Lived In The Absence Of Capitalism? The Mere Fact That You Are Living Today Is Proof That Capitalism Has Succeeded, Whether Or Not You Consider Your Own Life Very Valuable.

Government Is An Apparatus Of Compulsion And Coercion.

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.

Economically Considered, War And Revolution Are Always Bad Business.

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.

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.

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.

So Far As Feminism Seeks To Adjust The Legal Position Of Woman To That Of Man, So Far As It Seeks To Offer Her Legal And Economic Freedom To Develop And Act In Accordance With Her Inclinations, Desires, And Economic Circumstances—so Far It Is Nothing More Than A Branch Of The Great Liberal Movement, Which Advocates Peaceful And Free Evolution.

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

Nothing Is More Calculated To Make A Demagogue Popular Than A Constantly Reiterated Demand For Heavy Taxes On The Rich. Capital Levies And High Income Taxes On The Larger Incomes Are Extraordinarily Popular With The Masses, Who Do Not Have To Pay Them.

The Gold Standard Did Not Collapse. Governments Abolished It In Order To Pave The Way For Inflation. The Whole Grim Apparatus Of Oppression And Coercion, Policemen, Customs Guards, Penal Courts, Prisons, In Some Countries Even Executioners, Had To Be Put Into Action In Order To Destroy The Gold Standard.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Division Of Labor

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Whoever Wishes Peace Among Peoples Must Fight Statism.

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.

People Must Learn That The Accumulation Of Wealth By The Successful Conduct Of Business Is The Corollary Of The Improvement Of Their Own Standard Of Living And Vice Versa. They Must Realize That Bigness In Business Is Not An Evil, But Both The Cause And Effect Of The Fact That They Themselves Enjoy All Those Amenities Whose Enjoyment Is Called The “american Way Of Life.

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.

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

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

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.

Under Capitalism Everybody Is The Architect Of His Own Fortune.

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.

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

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

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.

The Causes Of All Panics, Crashes And Depressions Can Be Summed Up In Only Four Words: The Misuse Of Credit.

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.

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

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.

What Those People Who Ask For Equality Have In Mind Is Always An Increase In Their Own Power To Consume.

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.

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.

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.

Everyone Carries A Part Of Society On His Shoulders; No One Is Relieved Of His Share Of Responsibility By Others. And No One Can Find A Safe Way Out For Himself If Society Is Sweeping Toward Destruction. Therefore, Everyone, In His Own Interests, Must Thrust Himself Vigorously Into The Intellectual Battle. None Can Stand Aside With Unconcern; The Interest Of Everyone Hangs On The Result. Whether He Chooses Or Not, Every Man Is Drawn Into The Great Historical Struggle, The Decisive Battle Into Which Our Epoch Has Plunged Us.

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

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.'

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 Interventionists Do Not Approach The Study Of Economic Matters With Scientific Disinterestedness. Most Of Them Are Driven By An Envious Resentment Against Those Whose Incomes Are Larger Than Their Own. This Bias Makes It Impossible For Them To See Things As They Really Are. For Them The Main Thing Is Not To Improve The Conditions Of The Masses, But To Harm The Entrepreneurs And Capitalists Even If This Policy Victimizes The Immense Majority Of The People.

Capitalism Gave The World What It Needed, A Higher Standard Of Living For A Steadily Increasing Number Of People.

Those Who Satisfy The Wants Of A Smaller Number Of People Only Collect Fewer Votes-dollars-than Those Who Satisfy The Wants Of More People.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Industrialization

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The Characteristic Feature Of Capitalism That Distinguishes It From Pre-capitalist Methods Of Production Was Its New Principle Of Marketing. Capitalism Is Not Simply Mass Production, But Mass Production To Satisfy The Needs Of The Masses.

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

Reason Is The Main Resource Of Man In His Struggle For Survival.

Government Is Essentially The Negation Of Liberty.

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.

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

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.

The Final Outcome Of The Credit Expansion Is General Impoverishment.

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.

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

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.

Against Nature And Within Nature There Is No Freedom.

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.

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

The Main Political Problem Is How To Prevent The Police Power From Becoming Tyrannical. This Is The Meaning Of All The Struggles For Liberty.

The History Of Mankind Is The History Of Ideas.

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

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.

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

Daily Experience Proves Clearly To Everybody But The Most Bigoted Fanatics Of Socialism That Governmental Management Is Inefficient And Wasteful.

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

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.

The Only Source Of The Generation Of Additional Capital Goods Is Saving. If All The Goods Produced Are Consumed, No New Capital Comes Into Being.

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

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 Main Propoganda Trick Of Supporters Of The Allegedly "progressive" Policy Of Government Control Is To Blame Capitalism For All That Is Unsatisfactory In Present-day Conditions And To Extol The Blessings Of Socialism. They Have Never Attempted To Prove Their Fallacious Dogmas, All They Did Was To Call Their Adversaries Names And Cast Suspicion Upon Their Motives. And, Unfortunately, The Average Citizen Cannot See Through These Stratagems. The Liars Must Be Afraid Of The Truth And Are Therefore Driven To Suppress Its Pronouncement.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Greater Productivity Of Work Under The Division Of Labor Is A Unifying Influence. It Leads Men To Regard Each Other As Comrades In A Joint Struggle For Welfare, Rather Than As Competitors In A Struggle For Existence. It Makes Friends Out Of Enemies, Peace Out Of War, Society Out Of Individuals.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Comparatively Greater Prosperity Of The United States Is An Outcome Of The Fact That The New Deal Did Not Come In 1900 Or 1910, But Only In 1933.

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.

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 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.

The Interventionist Policy (big Government) Provides Thousands And Thousands Of People With Safe, Placid, And Not Too Strenuous Jobs At The Expense Of The Rest Of Society.

The 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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