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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.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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Socialism Is Not In

Ludwig Von Mises

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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.

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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.

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.

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

Free Markets. What Does This System Mean? The Answer Is Simple: It Is The Market Economy, It Is The System In Which The Cooperation Of Individuals In The Social Division Of Labor Is Achieved By The Market.

Division Of Labor

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.

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

The Continued Existence Of Society Depends Upon Private Property.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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

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

Economics Is A Theoretical Science And As Such Abstains From Any Judgement Of Value. It Is Not Its Task To Tell People What Ends They Should Aim At. It Is A Science Of The Means To Be Applied For Attainment Of Ends Chosen, Not, To Be Sure, A Science Of The Choosing Of Ends. Ultimate Decisions, The Valuations And The Choosing Of Ends, Are Beyond The Scope Of Any Science. Science Never Tells A Man How He Should Act; It Merely Shows How A Man Must Act If He Wants To Attain Definite Ends.

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.

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.

Once It Has Been Perceived That The Division Of Labour Is The Essence Of Society, Nothing Remains Of The Antithesis Between Individual And Society. The Contradiction Between Individual Principle And Social Principle Disappears.

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

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.

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

Despots And Democratic Majorities Are Drunk With Power.

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

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.

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

Depressions And Mass Unemployment Are Not Caused By The Free Market But By Government Interference In The Economy.

The Truth Is That Capitalism Has Not Only Multiplied Population Figures, But At The Same Time, Improved The People's Standard Of Living In An Unprecedented Way. Neither Economic Thinking Nor Historical Experience Suggests That Any Other Social System Could Be As Beneficial To The Masses As Capitalism. The Results Speak For Themselves. 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: Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice.

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

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

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.

A Society That Chooses Between Capitalism And Socialism Does Not Choose Between Two Social Systems; It Chooses Between Social Cooperation And The Disintegration Of Society. Socialism Is Not An Alternative To Capitalism; It Is An Alternative To Any System Under Which Men Can Live As Human Beings.

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

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

Economic Knowledge Necessarily Leads To Liberalism

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.

In The Market Economy The Worker Sells His Services As Other People Sell Their Commodities. The Employer Is Not The Employee's Lord. He Is Simply The Buyer Of Services Which He Must Purchase At Their Market Price.

The Attainment Of The Economic Aims Of Man Presupposes Peace.

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

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.

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

The Worst Law Is Better Than Bureaucratic Tyranny.

Civilization Is A Work Of Peaceful Co-operation.

In Public Administration There Is No Connection Between Revenue And Expenditure.

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

Professor Von Mises Has A Splendid Analytical Mind And An Admirable Passion For Liberty; But As A Student Of Human Nature He Is Worse Than Null And As A Debater He Is Of Hyde Park Standard.

Under A Socialist Mode Of Production All Personal Incentives Which Selfishness Provides Under Capitalism Are Removed, And A Premium Is Put Upon Laziness And Negligence. Whereas In A Capitalist Society Selfishness Incites Everyone To The Utmost Diligence, In A Socialist Society It Makes For Inertia And Laxity.

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.

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

Government Is An Apparatus Of Compulsion And Coercion.

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.

Socialism Is The Renunciation Of Rational Economy.

The Market System Makes All Producers Responsible To The Consumer.

Those Fighting For Free Enterprise And Free Competition Do Not Defend The Interests Of Those Rich Today. They Want A Free Hand Left To Unknown Men Who Will Be The Entrepreneurs Of Tomorrow.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

Liberalism Must Be Intolerant Of Every Sort Of Intolerance.

Freedom And Liberty Always Mean Freedom From Police Interference.

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

If The Present Tax Rates Had Been In Effect From The Beginning Of Our Century, Many Who Are Millionaires Today Would Live Under More Modest Circumstances. But All Those New Branches Of Industry Which Supply The Masses With Articles Unheard Of Before, Would Operate, If At All, On A Much Smaller Scale, And Their Products Would Be Beyond The Reach Of The Common Man.

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.

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

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.

The System That Would Stand Midway Between Capitalism And Socialism.

Capitalism And Socialism

Inflation Is Essentially Antidemocratic.

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

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.

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

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

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

Spiritual Movements Are Revolts Of Thought Against Inertia, Of The Few Against The Many; Of Those Who Because They Are Strong In Spirit Are Strongest Alone Against Those Who Can Express Themselves Only In The Mass And The Mob, And Who Are Significant Only Because They Are Numerous.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Capitalism Or Market Economy Is That System Of Social Cooperation And Division Of Labor That Is Based On Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production.

Division Of Labor

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

It Is Evident That Youth Is The First Victim Of The Trend Toward Bureaucratization. The Young Men Are Deprived Of Any Opportunity To Shape Their Own Fate.

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.

Peace And Not War Is The Father Of All Things.

No One Can Escape The Influence Of A Prevailing Ideology.

Liberty Is Always Freedom From The Government.

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.

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

The Boom Produces Impoverishment. But Still More Disastrous Are Its Moral Ravages. It Makes People Despondent And Dispirited. The More Optimistic They Were Under The Illusory Prosperity Of The Boom, The Greater Is Their Despair And Their Feeling Of Frustration.

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.

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

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

Socialist Society Is A Society Of Officials.

Society Cannot Contribute Anything To The Breeding And Growing Of Ingenious Men. A Creative Genius Cannot Be Trained. There Are No Schools For Creativeness. A Genius Is Precisely A Man Who Defies All Schools And Rules, Who Deviates From The Traditional Roads Of Routine And Opens Up New Paths Through Land Inaccessible Before. A Genius Is Always A Teacher, Never A Pupil; He Is Always Self-made.

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.

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

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

Historical Knowledge

In A Game There Are Winners And Losers. But A Business Deal Is Always Advantageous For Both Parties. If Both The Buyer And The Seller Were Not To Consider The Transaction As The Most Advantageous Action They Could Choose Under The Prevailing Conditions, They Would Not Enter Into The Deal.

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

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.

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.

Only Stilted Pedants Can Conceive The Idea That There Are Absolute Norms To Tell What Is Beautiful And What Is Not. They Try To Derive From The Works Of The Past A Code Of Rules With Which, As They Fancy, The Writers And Artists Of The Future Should Comply. But The Genius Does Not Cooperate With The Pundit.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

If We Live Our Lives As A Gift It Is Possible To Reach A Blissful State Of Eternal Happiness. It Is Those Who Live Their Life With A Sense Of Entitlement That Undermine Peace , Freedom And Liberty. Know That Every Breath Is A Miracle And Every Moment A Blessing And You Will Achieve Your Dreams. 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

In Life Everything Is Continually In Flux.

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

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.

The Prevailing Legal And Moral Views Of A Time Are Held Not Only By Those Whom They Benefit But By Those, Too, Who Appear To Suffer From Them. Their Domination Is Expressed In That Fact- That The People From Whom They Claim Sacrifice Accept Them.

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.

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

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

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

Taxing Profits Is Tantamount To Taxing Success.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Government Pretends To Be Endowed With The Mystical Power To Accord Favors Out Of An Inexhaustible Horn Of Plenty. It Is Both Omniscient And Omnipotent. It Can By A Magic Wand Create Happiness And Abundance. The Truth Is The Government Cannot Give If It Does Not Take From Somebody.

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

The Recurrence Of Periods Of Depression And Mass Unemployment Has Discredited Capitalism In The Opinion Of Injudicious People. Yet These Events Are Not The Outcome Of The Operation Of The Free Market. They Are On The Contrary The Result Of Well-intentioned But Ill-advised Government Interference With The Market.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

Whoever Wishes Peace Among Peoples Must Fight Statism.

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.

They [intellectuals] Coined Most Of The Slogans That Guided The Butcheries Of Bolshevism, Fascism, And Nazism. Intellectuals Extolling The Delights Of Murder, Writers Advocating Censorship, Philosophers Judging The Merits Of Thinkers And Authors, Not According To The Value Of Their Contributions But According To Their Achievements On Battlefields, Are The Spiritual Leaders Of Our Age Of Perpetual Strife.

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 Lasting Order Cannot Be Established By Bayonets.

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

The 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.

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.

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

The Methods Of The Natural Sciences Cannot Be Applied To Human Behavior Because This Behaviorlacks The Peculiarity That Characterizes Events In The Field Of The Natural Sciences, Viz., Regularity.

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

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.

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

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.

Every Socialist Is A Disguised Dictator.

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

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.

The Direction Of All Economic Affairs Is In The Market Society A Task Of The Entrepreneurs. Theirs Is The Control Of Production. They Are At The Helm And Steer The Ship. A Superficial Observer Would Believe That They Are Supreme. But They Are Not. They Are Bound To Obey Unconditionally The Captain's Orders.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

It Is The Worst Of All Superstitions To Assume That The Epistemological Characteristics Of One Branch Of Knowledge Must Necessarily Be Applicable To Any Other Branch.

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

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

Freedom Really Means The Freedom To Make Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

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 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.

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

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