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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.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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Private Property Creates For

Ludwig Von Mises

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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.

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

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.

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.

Liberalism And Capitalism Address Themselves To The Cool, Well-balanced Mind. They Proceed By Strict Logic, Eliminating Any Appeal To The Emotions. Socialism, On The Contrary, Works On The Emotions, Tries To Violate Logical Considerations By Rousing A Sense Of Personal Interest And To Stifle The Voice Of Reason By Awakening Primitive Instincts.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

As Soon As We Surrender The Principle That The State Should Not Interfere In Any Questions Touching On The Individuals Mode Of Life, We End By Regulating And Restricting The Latter Down To The Smallest Details.

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.

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

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.

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

The Criterion Of Truth Is That It Works Even If Nobody Is Prepared To Acknowledge It.

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

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

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

The Capitalist System, In Spite Of All Obstacles Put In Its Way By Governments And Politicians, Has Raised The Standard Of Living Of The Masses In An Unprecedented Way.

Facts Per Se Can Neither Prove Nor Refute Anything. Everything Is Decided By The Interpretation And Explanation Of The Facts, By The Ideas And The Theories.

The 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.

Despots And Democratic Majorities Are Drunk With Power.

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

If One Rejects Laissez Faire On Account Of Mans Fallibility And Moral Weakness, One Must For The Same Reason Also Reject Every Kind Of Government Action.

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

For It Is An Essential Difference Between Capitalist And Socialist Production That Under Capitalism Men Provide For Themselves, While Under Socialism They Are Provided For.

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.

If The Members Of Parliament No Longer Consider Themselves Mandatories Of The Taxpayers But Deputies Of Those Receiving Salaries, Wages, Subsidies, Doles, And Other Benefits From The Treasury, Democracy Is Done For.

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

Freedom Really Means The Freedom To Make Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

If The Practice Persists Of Covering Government Deficits With The Issue Of Notes, Then The Day Will Come Without Fail, Sooner Or Later, When The Monetary Systems Of Those Nations Pursuing This Course Will Break Down Completely. The Purchasing Power Of The Monetary Unit Will Decline More And More, Until Finally It Disappears Completely.

Disappear Completely

Scientific Research Sooner Or Later, But Inevitably, Encounters Something Ultimately Given That It Cannot Trace Back To Something Else Of Which It Would Appear As The Regular Or Necessary Derivative. Scientific Progress Consists In Pushing Further Back This Ultimately Given.

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

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.

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

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.

You Have The Courage To Tell The Masses What No Politician Told Them: You Are Inferior And All The Improvements In Your Conditions Which You Simply Take For Granted You Owe To The Effort Of Men Who Are Better Than You. If This Be Arrogance, As Some Of Your Critics Observed, It Is Still The Truth That Had To Said In The Age Of The Welfare State.

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

The Distinctive Principle Of Western Social Philosophy Is Individualism.

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

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

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

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

Economic Knowledge Necessarily Leads To Liberalism

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.

Freedom And Liberty Always Mean Freedom From Police Interference.

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

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

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

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

The Final Outcome Of The Credit Expansion Is General Impoverishment.

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 Is No Such Thing As A Just And Fair Method Of Exercising The Tremendous Power That Interventionism Puts Into The Hands Of The Legislature And The Executive.

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

What 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.

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

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.

Depression Is The Aftermath Of Credit Expansion.

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

Private Property Creates For The Individual A Sphere In Which He Is Free Of The State. It Sets Limits To The Operation Of The Authoritarian Will. It Allows Other Forces To Arise Side By Side With And In Opposition To Political Power. It Thus Becomes The Basis Of All Those Activities That Are Free From Violent Interference On The Part Of The State. It Is The Soil In Which The Seeds Of Freedom Are Nurtured And In Which The Autonomy Of The Individual And Ultimately All Intellectual And Material Progress Are Rooted.

The 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

Rulers Do Not Like To Admit That Their Power Is Restricted By Any Laws Other Than Those Of Physics And Biology. They Never Ascribe Their Failures And Frustrations To The Violation Of Economic Law.

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.

If Some Peoples Pretend That History Or Geography Gives Them The Right To Subjugate Other Races, Nations, Or Peoples, There Can Be No Peace.

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.

Against Nature And Within Nature There Is No Freedom.

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

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.

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

What People Today Call Inflation Is Not Inflation, I.e., The Increase In The Quantity Of Money And Money Substitutes, But The General Rise In Commodity Prices And Wage Rates Which Is The Inevitable Consequence Of Inflation.

Commodity Prices

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

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.

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.

Taxing Profits Is Tantamount To Taxing Success.

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

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

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

Unintended Consequences

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.

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

There 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 Consumers Are Asking For, They Lose Their Office. Their Task Is Service To The Consumer. Profit And Loss Are The Instruments By Means Of Which The Consumers Keep A Tight Rein On All Business Activities.

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.

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.

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.

The Avowed Aim Of All Utopian Movements Is To Put An End To History And To Establish A Final And Permanent Calm.

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

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

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.

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.

Aggressors Cannot Wage Total War Without Introducing Socialism.

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.

There Is No Means By Which Anyone Can Evade His Personal Responsibility. Whoever Neglects To Examine To The Best Of His Abilities All The Problems Involved Voluntarily Surrenders His Birthright To A Selfappointed Elite Of Supermen. In Such Vital Matters Blind Reliance Upon 'experts' And Uncritical Acceptance Of Popular Catchwords And Prejudices Is Tantamount To The Abandonment Of Self-determination And To Yielding To Other People's Domination. As Conditions Are Today, Nothing Can Be More Important To Every Intelligent Man Than Economics. His Own Fate And That Of His Progeny Are At Stake.

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

Historical Knowledge

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

Industrialization

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.

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.

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.

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.

Credit Expansion Is The Governments' Foremost Tool In Their Struggle Against The Market Economy. In Their Hands It Is The Magic Wand Designed To Conjure Away The Scarcity Of Capital Goods, To Lower The Rate Of Interest Or To Abolish It Altogether, To Finance Lavish Government Spending, To Expropriate The Capitalists, To Contrive Everlasting Booms, And To Make Everybody Prosperous.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

The Capitalist System Of Production Is An Economic Democracy In Which Every Penny Gives A Right To Vote. The Consumers Are The Sovereign People. The Capitalists, The Entrepreneurs, And The Farmers Are The People's Mandatories. If They Do Not Obey, If They Fail To Produce, At The Lowest Possible Cost, What

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

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.

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.

The So-called Liberals Of Today Have The Very Popular Idea That Freedom Of Speech, Of Thought, Of The Press, Freedom Of Religion, Freedom From Imprisonment Without Trial-that All These Freedoms Can Be Preserved In The Absence Of What Is Called Economic Freedom. They Do Not Realize That, In A System Where There Is No Market, Where The Government Directs Everything, All Those Other Freedoms Are Illusory, Even If They Are Made Into Laws And Written Up In Constitutions.

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

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

Do The American Voters Know That The Unprecedented Improvement In Their Standard Of Living That The Last Hundred Years Brought Was The Result Of The Steady Rise In The Per-head Quota Of Capital Invested? Do They Realize That Every Measure Leading To Capital Decumulation Jeopardizes Their Prosperity?

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

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.

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.

The Unpopularity Of Economics Is The Result Of Its Analysis Of The Effects Of Privileges. It Is Impossible To Invalidate The Economists Demonstration That All Privileges Hurt The Interests Of The Rest Of The Nation Or At Least A Great Part Of It.

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.

Violent Resistance Against The Power Of The State Is The Last Resort Of The Minority In Its Effort To Break Loose From The Oppression Of The Majority. ... The Citizen Must Not Be So Narrowly Circumscribed In His Activities That, If He Thinks Differently From Those In Power, His Only Choice Is Either To Perish Or To Destroy The Machinery Of State.

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.

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

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

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.

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 Member Of A Contractual Society Is Free Because He Serves Others Only In Serving Himself. What Restrains Him Is Only The Inevitable Natural Phenomenon Of Scarcity.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

What Impels Every Man To The Utmost Exertion In The Service Of His Fellow Man. Is, In The Market Not Compulsion On The Part Of Gendarmes, Hangmen And Penal Courts, It Is Self Interest.

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 History Of Mankind Is The History Of Ideas.

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.

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

The 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.

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.

A Higher Standard Of Living Also Brings About A Higher Standard Of Culture And Civilization.

The Continued Existence Of Society Depends Upon Private Property.

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

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.

Science Does Not Give Us Absolute And Final Certainty. It Only Gives Us Assurance Within The Limits Of Our Mental Abilities And The Prevailing State Of Scientific Thought.

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

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

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

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

Value Is Not Intrinsic, It Is Not In Things. It Is Within Us; It Is The Way In Which Man Reacts To The Conditions Of His Environment. Neither Is Value In Words And Doctrines, It Is Reflected In Human Conduct. It Is Not What A Man Or Groups Of Men Say About Value That Counts, But How They Act.

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

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.

The Santa Claus Principle Liquidates Itself.

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.

An Intellectual Inferiority Of The Masses Would Manifest Itself Most Evidently In Their Aiming At The Abolition Of The System In Which They Themselves Are Supreme And Are Served By The Elite Of The Most Talented Men.

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

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

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

Every Step Toward The Elimination Of Profit Is Progress On The Way Toward Social Disintegration.

The Consumers Suffer When The Laws Of The Country Prevent The Most Efficient Entrepreneurs From Expanding The Sphere Of Their Activities. What Made Some Enterprises Develop Into "big Business" Was Precisely Their Success In Filling Best The Demand Of The Masses.

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.

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.

Under Capitalism Everybody Is The Architect Of His Own Fortune.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Civilization Is A Work Of Peaceful Co-operation.

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

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 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 Only Means To Well-being Is To Increase The Quantity Of Products. This Is What Business Aims At.

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

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.

The Philosophy Of Protectionism Is A Philosophy Of War.

It Is Completely In Accord With The Etatist Thinking Prevalent Everywhere Today To Consider A Theory To Be Finally Disposed Of Merely Because The Authorities Who Control Appointments To Academic Positions, Want To Know Nothing Of It, And To See The Criterion Of Truth In The Approval Of A Government Office.

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.

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.

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