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Resentment Is At Work When One So Hates Somebody For His More Favorable Circumstances That One Is Prepared To Bear Heavy Losses If Only The Hated One Might Also Come To Harm. Many Of Those Who Attack Capitalism Know Very Well That Their Situation Under Any Other Economic System Will Be Less Favorable.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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Resentment Is At Work

Ludwig Von Mises

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Resentment Is At Work When One So Hates Somebody For His More Favorable Circumstances That One Is Prepared To Bear Heavy Losses If Only The Hated One Might Also Come To Harm. Many Of Those Who Attack Capitalism Know Very Well That Their Situation Under Any Other Economic System Will Be Less Favorable.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Whoever Wishes Peace Among Peoples Must Fight Statism.

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

It Is Necessary To Curb The Power Of Government. This Is The Task Of All Constitutions, Bills Of Rights And Laws. This Is The Meaning Of All Struggles Which Men Have Fought For Liberty.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Capitalism Means Free Enterprise, Sovereignty Of The Consumers In Economic Matters, And Sovereignty Of The Voters In Political Matters. Socialism Means Full Government Control Of Every Sphere Of The Individuals Life And The Unrestricted Supremacy Of The Government In Its Capacity As Central Board Of Production Management.

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

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

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

The 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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The 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.

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 Governments Alone Are Responsible For The Spread Of The Superstitious Awe With Which The Common Man Looks Upon Every Bit Of Paper Upon Which The Treasury Or Agencies Which It Controls Have Printed The Magical Words Legal Tender.

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

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

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

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.

Government Is Essentially The Negation Of Liberty.

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

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

Despots And Democratic Majorities Are Drunk With Power.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 Characteristic Mark Of Economic History Under Capitalism Is Unceasing Economic Progress, A Steady Increase In The Quantity Of Capital Goods Available, And A Continuous Trend Toward An Improvement In The General Standard Of Living.

Economic History

No One Can Escape The Influence Of A Prevailing Ideology.

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.

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

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

It Is Not Conclusive Proof Of A Doctrine's Correctness That Its Adversaries Use The Police, The Hangman, And Violent Mobs To Fight It. But It Is A Proof Of The Fact That Those Taking Recourse To Violent Oppression Are In Their Subconscious Convinced Of The Untenability Of Their Own Doctrines.

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

The Welfare State Is Merely A Method For Transforming The Market Economy Step By Step Into Socialism.

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

An Essential Point In The Social Philosophy Of Interventionism Is The Existence Of An Inexhaustible Fund Which Can Be Squeezed Forever. The Whole System Of Interventionism Collapses When The Fountain Is Drained Off: The Santa Clause Principle Liquidates Itself.

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

Capitalism And Socialism Are Two Distinct Patterns Of Social Organization. Private Control Of The Means Of Production And Public Control Are Contradictory Notions And Not Merely Contrary Notions. There Is No Such Thing As A Mixed Economy, A System That Would Stand Midway Between Capitalism And Socialism.

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.

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

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 Socialist Is A Disguised Dictator.

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.

All Varieties Of Interference With The Market Phenomena Not Only Fail To Achieve The Ends Aimed At By Their Authors And Supporters, But Bring About A State Of Affairs Which - From The Point Of View Of Their Authors And Advocates Valuations - Is Less Desirable Than The Previous State Of Affairs Which They Were Designed To Alter.

The Concept Of A 'just' Or 'fair' Price Is Devoid Of Any Scientific Meaning; It Is A Disguise For Wishes, A Striving For A State Of Affairs Different From Reality.

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

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

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.

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

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

All Almsgiving Inevitably Tends To Pauperize The Recipient.

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

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

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.

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

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

Freedom Really Means The Freedom To Make Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

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

The Genuine History Of Mankind Is The History Of Ideas. It Is Ideas That Distinguish Man From All Other Beings. Ideas Engender Social Institutions, Political Changes, Technologi- Cal Methods Of Production, And All That Is Called Economic Conditions.

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

It Is Important To Remember That Government Interference Always Means Either Violent Action Or The Threat Of Such Action. Government Is In The Last Resort The Employment Of Armed Men, Of Policemen, Gendarmes, Soldiers, Prison Guards, And Hangmen. The Essential Feature Of Government Is The Enforcement Of Its Decrees By Beating, Killing, And Imprisoning. Those Who Are Asking For More Government Interference Are Asking Ultimately For More Compulsion And Less Freedom.

The Champions Of Socialism Call Themselves Progressives, But They Recommend A System Which Is Characterized By Rigid Observance Of Routine And By A Resistance To Every Kind Of Improvement. They Call Themselves Liberals, But They Are Intent Upon Abolishing Liberty. They Call Themselves Democrats, But They Yearn For Dictatorship. They Call Themselves Revolutionaries, But They Want To Make The Government Omnipotent. They Promise The Blessings Of The Garden Of Eden, But They Plan To Transform The World Into A Gigantic Post Office. Every Man But One A Subordinate Clerk In A Bureau.

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.

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

In The Long Run The Ideas Of The Majority, However Detrimental They May Be, Will Carry On. The Future Of Mankind Depends On The Ability Of The Elite To Influence Public Opinion In The Right Direction.

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.

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.

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

Overconsumption

Factors Of Production

What Is Called Economic Progress Is The Joint Effect Of The Activities Of The Three Progressive Groups-or Classes-of The Savers, The Scientist-inventors, And The Entrepreneurs, Operating In A Market Economy As Far As It Is Not Sabotaged By The Endeavors Of The Nonprogressive Majority Of The Routinists And The Public Policies Supported By Them.

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

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.

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

In Life Everything Is Continually In Flux.

Man Is Born An Asocial And Antisocial Being. The Newborn Child Is A Savage. Egoism Is His Nature. Only The Experience Of Life And The Teachings Of His Parents, His Brothers, Sisters, Playmates, And Later Of Other People Force Him To Acknowledge The Advantages Of Social Cooperation And Accordingly To Change His Behavior.

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

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

The State Is The Only Institution Entitled To Apply Coercion And Compulsion And To Inflict Harm Upon Individuals. This Tremendous Power Cannot Be Abandoned To The Discretion Of Some Men, However Competent And Clever They May Deem Themselves. It Is Necessary To Restrict Its Application. This Is The Task Of The Laws.

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

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

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.

[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

Every Man Aims At Avoiding What Causes Him Pain; The Activities Of Government Ultimately Consist In The Infliction Of Pain. All Great Achievements Of Mankind Were The Product Of A Spontaneous Effort On The Part Of Individuals; Government Substitutes Coercion For Voluntary Action.

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.

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

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

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

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

Both Force And Money Are Impotent Against Ideas.

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.

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.

The Final Outcome Of The Credit Expansion Is General Impoverishment.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

The Tricks And Artifices Of Advertising Are Available To The Seller Of The Better Product No Less Than To The Seller Of The Poorer Product. But Only The Former Enjoys The Advantage Derived From The Better Quality Of His Product.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

It Is Not The Fault Of The Entrepreneurs That The Consumers,the People, The Common Man,prefer Liquor To Bibles And Detective Stories To Serious Books, And That Governments Prefer Guns To Butter. The Entrepreneur Does Not Make Greater Profits In Selling Bad Things Than In Selling Good Things. His Profits Are The Greater The Better He Succeeds In Providing The Consumers With Those Things They Ask For Most Intensely.

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.

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.

While Under Precapitalistic Conditions Superior Men Were The Masters On Whom The Masses Of The Inferior Had To Attend, Under Capitalism The More Gifted And More Able Have No Means To Profit From Their Superiority Other Than To Serve To The Best Of Their Abilities The Wishes Of The Majority Of The Less Gifted.

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

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.

The Luxury Of Today Is The Necessity Of Tomorrow. Every Advance First Comes Into Being As The Luxury Of A Few Rich People, Only To Become, After A Time, An Indispensable Necessity Taken For Granted By Everyone. Luxury Consumption Provides Industry With The Stimulus To Discover And Introduce New, Things. It Is One Of The Dynamic Factors In Our Economy. To It We Owe The Progressive Innovations By Which The Standard Of Living Of All Strata Of The Population Has Been Gradually Raised.

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!

A Famous, Very Often Quoted Phrase Says: "that Government Is Best, Which Governs Least." I Do Not Believe This To Be A Correct Description Of Of The Functions Of A Good Government. Government Ought To Do All The Things For Which It Is Needed And For Which It Is Established. Government Ought To Protect The Individuals Within The Country Against The Violent And Fraudulent Attacks Of Gangsters, And It Should Defend The Country Against Foreign Enemies. These Are The Functions Of Government Within A Free System, Within The System Of The Market Economy.

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.

The Philosophy Underlying The System Of Progressive Taxation Is That The Income And Wealth Of The Well-to-do Classes Can Be Freely Tapped. What The Advocates Of These Tax Rates Fail To Realize Is That The Greater Part Of The Incomes Taxed Away Would Not Have Been Consumed But Saved And Invested.

Progressive Taxation

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.

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

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

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.

Only To Bureaucrats Can The Idea Occur That Establishing New Offices, Promulgating New Decrees, And Increasing The Number Of Government Employees Alone Can Be Described As Positive And Beneficial Measures.

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.

Liberty Is Always Freedom From The Government.

In The Capitalist Society There Is A Place And Bread For All. Its Ability To Expand Provides Sustenance For Every Worker. Permanent Unemployment Is Not A Feature Of Free Capitalism.

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

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

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 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.

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.

How Pale Is The Art Of Sorcerers, Witches, And Conjurors When Compared With That Of The Government's Treasury Department!

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

It Is Important To Remember That Government Interference Always Means Either Violent Action Or The Threat Of Such Action. The Funds That A Government Spends For Whatever Purposes Are Levied By Taxation. And Taxes Are Paid Because The Taxpayers Are Afraid Of Offering Resistance To The Tax Gatherers. They Know That Any Disobedience Or Resistance Is Hopeless. As Long As This Is The State Of Affairs, The Government Is Able To Collect The Money That It Wants To Spend.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

State Interference In Economic Life, Which Calls Itself Economic Policy, Has Done Nothing But Destroy Economic Life. Prohibitions And Regulations Have By Their General Obstructive Tendency Fostered The Growth Of The Spirit Of Wastefulness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Market And Its Inescapable Law Are Supreme.

What Workers Must Learn Is That The Only Reason Why Wage Rates Are Higher In The United States Is That The Per Head Quota Of Capital Invested Is Higher.

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.

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.

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.

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 Consumers Are Merciless. They Never Buy In Order To Benefit A Less Efficient Producer And To Protect Him Against The Consequences Of His Failure To Manage Better. They Want To Be Served As Well As Possible. And The Working Of The Capitalist System Forces The Entrepreneur To Obey The Orders Issued By The Consumers.

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