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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.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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The Interventionists Do Not

Ludwig Von Mises

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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.

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The System That Would Stand Midway Between Capitalism And Socialism.

Capitalism And Socialism

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

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

Continued Adherence To A Policy Of Compulsory Education Is Utterly Incompatible With Efforts To Establish Lasting Peace.

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.

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

Seen From The Point Of View Of The Particular Group Interests Of The Bureaucrats, Every Measure That Makes The Government's Payroll Swell Is Progress.

What Makes The Existence And The Evolution Of Society Possible Is Precisely The Fact That Peaceful Cooperation Under The Social Division Of Labor In The Long Run Best Serves The Selfish Concerns Of All Individuals. The Eminence Of The Market Society Is That Its Whole Functioning And Operation Is The Consummation Of This Principle.

Division Of Labor

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

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.

Government Means Always Coercion And Compulsion And Is By Necessity The Opposite Of Liberty.

Used To The Conditions Of A Capitalistic Environment, The Average American Takes It For Granted That Every Year Business Makes Something New And Better Accessible To Him. Looking Backward Upon The Years Of His Own Life, He Realizes That Many Implements That Were Totally Unknown In The Days Of His Youth And Many Others Which At That Time Could Be Enjoyed Only By A Small Minority Are Now Standard Equipment Of Almost Every Household.

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

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

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

The Sharper The Competition, The Better It Serves Its Social Function To Improve Economic Production.

What Is Needed For A Sound Expansion Of Production Is Additional Capital Goods, Not Money Or Fiduciary Media. The Credit Expansion Is Built On The Sands Of Banknotes And Deposits. It Must Collapse.

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.

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.

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

Socialism Is The Renunciation Of Rational Economy.

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.

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.

Economically Considered, War And Revolution Are Always Bad Business.

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 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.

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 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.

The Attainment Of The Economic Aims Of Man Presupposes Peace.

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

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.

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

Rules And Regulations

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

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

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

Historical Knowledge

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.

If You Increase The Quantity Of Money, You Bring About The Lowering Of The Purchasing Power Of The Monetary Unit.

Purchasing Power

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Taxing Profits Is Tantamount To Taxing Success.

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

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.

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

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.

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Capitalist Economy

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

Thus, The Isolated Interference With One Or A Few Prices Of Consumer Goods Always Bring About Effects-and This Is Important To Realize-which Are Even Less Satisfactory Than The Conditions That Prevailed Before.

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

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.

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.

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

The Final Outcome Of The Credit Expansion Is General Impoverishment.

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

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.

Freedom Is Indivisible. As Soon As One Starts To Restrict It, One Enters Upon A Decline On Which It Is Difficult To Stop.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Liberalism Must Be Intolerant Of Every Sort Of Intolerance.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Santa Claus Principle Liquidates Itself.

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.

Freedom And Liberty Always Mean Freedom From Police Interference.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Once Public Opinion Is Convinced That The Increase In The Quantity Of Money Will Continue And Never Come To An End, And That Consequently The Prices Of All Commodities Will Not Cease To Rise, Everybody Becomes Eager To Buy As Much As Possible And Restrict His Cash Holdings To Minimum Size... If The Credit Expansion Is Not Stopped In Time, The Boom Turns To Crack-up Boom: The Flight Into Real Values Begins, And The Whole Monetary System Founders.

[t]he Essence Of So-called War Prosperity: It Enriches Some By What It Takes From Others. It Is Not Rising Wealth But A Shifting Of Wealth And Income.

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

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

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

Economics Is Not About Things And Tangible Material Objects; It Is About Men, Their Meanings And Actions.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

There Is Simply No Other Choice Than This: Either To Abstain From Interference In The Free Play Of The Market, Or To Delegate The Entire Management Of Production And Distribution To The Government. Either Capitalism Or Socialism: There Exists No Middle Way.

Despots And Democratic Majorities Are Drunk With Power.

The Struggle For Freedom Is Not The Struggle Of The Many Against The Few, But Of Minorities, Sometimes Of A Minority Of But One Man Gainst The Majority.

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.

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

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

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

When We Call A Capitalist Society A Consumers Democracy We Mean That The Power To Dispose Of The Means Of Production, Which Belongs To The Entrepreneurs And Capitalists, Can Only Be Acquired By Means Of The Consumers Ballot, Held Daily In The Marketplace.

Liberty Is Always Freedom From The Government.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The Riches Of The Rich Are Not The Cause Of The Poverty Of Anybody; The Process That Makes Some People Rich Is, On The Contrary, The Corollary Of The Process That Improves Many Peoples Want Satisfaction. The Entrepreneurs, The Capitalists And The Technologists Prosper As Far As They Succeed In Best Supplying The Consumers.

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

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.

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.

Political Ideas That Have Dominated The Public Mind For Decades Cannot Be Refuted Through Rational Arguments. They Must Run Their Course In Life And Cannot Collapse Otherwise Than In Great Catastrophe.

The Market And Its Inescapable Law Are Supreme.

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

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 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 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.

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

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

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

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

It Is 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

A Lasting Order Cannot Be Established By Bayonets.

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.

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.

Capitalism Is Essentially A System Of Mass Production For The Satisfaction Of The Needs Of The Masses. It Pours A Horn Of Plenty Upon The Common Man. It Has Raised The Average Standard Of Living To A Height Never Dreamed Of In Earlier Ages. It Has Made Accessible To Millions Of People Enjoyments Which A Few Generations Ago Were Only Within The Reach Of A Small élite.

The State Is Essentially An Apparatus Of Compulsion And Coercion. The Characteristic Feature Of Its Activities Is To Compel People Through The Application Or The Threat Of Force To Behave Otherwise Than They Would Like To Behave.

The 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.

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.

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

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 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 Most Successful Businessmen Were Often Uneducated When Measured By The Scholastic Standards Of The Teaching Profession. But They Were Equal To Their Social Function Of Adjusting Production To The Most Urgent Demand. Because Of These Merits The Consumers Chose Them For Business Leadership.

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

Within The Market Society Each Serves All His Fellow Citizens And Each Is Served By Them. It Is A System Of Mutual Exchange Of Services And Commodities, A Mutual Giving, And Receiving.

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

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.

Society Is Joint Action And Cooperation In Which Each Participant Sees The Other Partner's Success As A Means For The Attainment Of His Own.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Truth Is That The Government Cannot Give If It Does Not Take From Somebody...it Is Not In The Power Of The Government To Make Everybody More Prosperous.

If The Government Objects To Monopoly Prices For New Inventions, It Should Stop Granting Patents.

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.

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

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

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

Fascism Was An Emergency Makeshift. To View It As Something More Would Be A Fatal Error.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

The 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.

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.

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

The History Of Mankind Is The History Of Ideas. For It Is Ideas, Theories, And Doctrines That Guide Human Action, Determine The Ultimate Ends Men Aim At, And The Choice Of The Means Employed For The Attainment Of These Ends.

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

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

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.

Whoever Wishes Peace Among Peoples Must Fight Statism.

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

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.

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

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.

Division Of Labor

Love One Another

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

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

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.

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.

...this Remedy Is The Power Of The Citizens; They Have To Prevent The Establishment Of Such An Autocratic Regime That Arrogates To Itself A Higher Wisdom Than That Of The Average Citizen. This Is The Fundamental Difference Between Freedom And Serfdom.

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.

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

What Economic Calculation Requires Is A Monetary System Whose Functioning Is Not Sabotaged By Government Interference.

Monetary System

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.

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

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Chiang Kai-shek

Vicente Del Bosque

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