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The Santa Claus Principle Liquidates Itself.

-Ludwig Von Mises

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The Santa Claus Principle

Ludwig Von Mises

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The Santa Claus Principle Liquidates Itself.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Government Is An Apparatus Of Compulsion And Coercion.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Government Is The Only Institution That Can Take A Valuable Commodity Like Paper, And Make It Worthless By Applying Ink.

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

Nobody Can Be At The Same Time A Correct Bureaucrat And An Innovator

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

Under Capitalism Everybody Provides For Their Own Needs By Serving Others.

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.

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

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

The Masses Favor Socialism Because They Trust The Socialist Propaganda Of The Intellectuals. The Intellectuals, Not The Populace, Are Molding Public Opinion.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

There Is No Remedy For The Inefficiency Of Public Management.

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.

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.

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

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

Nothing, However, Is As Ill Founded As The Assertion Of The Alleged Equality Of All Members Of The Human Race.

Despots And Democratic Majorities Are Drunk With Power.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Inflation Is An Increase In The Quantity Of Money Without A Corresponding Increase In The Demand For Money, I.e., For Cash Holdings.

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.

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

A Lasting Order Cannot Be Established By Bayonets.

The Essence Of Democracy Is Not That Everyone Makes And Administers Laws But That Lawgivers And Rulers Should Be Dependent On The People's Will In Such A Way That They May Be Peaceably Changed If Conflict Occurs.

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

Commodity Prices

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

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

Public Works Are Not Accomplished By The Miraculous Power Of A Magic Wand. They Are Paid For By Funds Taken Away From The Citizens.

Both Force And Money Are Impotent Against Ideas.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Egalitarian Doctrine Is Manifestly Contrary To All The Facts Established By Biology And By History. Only Fanatical Partisans Of This Theory Can Contend That What Distinguishes The Genius From The Dullard Is Entirely The Effect Of Postnatal Influences.

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

Rules And Regulations

True, Man Cannot Escape Death. But For The Present He Is Alive; And Life, Not Death, Takes Hold Of Him... It Is Mans Innate Nature That He Seeks To Preserve And To Strengthen His Life, That He Is Discontented And Aims At Removing Uneasiness, That He Is In Search Of What May Be Called Happiness.

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

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

Under Capitalism Everybody Is The Architect Of His Own Fortune.

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.

Every Extension Of The Functions And Power Of The State Beyond Its Primary Duty Of Maintaining Peace And Justice Should Be Scrutinized With Jealous Vigilance.

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

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

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

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.

No One Can Escape The Influence Of A Prevailing Ideology.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

Production Is Not Something Physical, Material, And External; It Is A Spiritual And Intellectual Phenomenon.

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

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

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

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.

...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.

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

A New Type Of Superstition Has Got Hold Of People's Minds, The Worship Of The State. People Demand The Exercise Of The Methods Of Coercion And Compulsion, Of Violence And Threat. Woe To Anybody Who Does Not Bend His Knee To The Fashionable Idols!

The Entrepreneur Profits To The Extent He Has Succeeded In Serving The Consumers Better Than Other People Have Done.

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

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.

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.

The [liberals] Consider Profits As Objectionable. The Very Existence Of Profits Is In Their Eyes A Proof That Wage Rates Could Be Raised Without Harm To Anybody. They Speak Of Profit Without Dealing With Loss. Profit And Loss Are The Instruments By Means Of Which The Consumers Keep A Tight Rein On All Business Activities. A Profitable Enterprise Tends To Expand; An Unprofitable One Tends To Shrink. The Elimination Of Profit Renders Production Rigid And Abolishes The Consumer's Control.

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

In Relation To The Immense Sacrifices That The State Demands Of The Individual Through The Blood Tax, It Seems Rather Incidental Whether It Compensates The Soldier More Or Less Abundantly For The Loss Of Time That He Suffers From His Military-service Obligation.

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.

As Soon As The Economic Freedom Which The Market Economy Grants To Its Members Is Removed, All Political Liberties And Bills Of Rights Become Humbug.

The Attainment Of The Economic Aims Of Man Presupposes Peace.

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

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.

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.

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

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 Economy Needs No Apologists And Propagandists. It Can Apply To Itself The Words Of Sir Christopher Wren's Epitaph In St. Paul's: 'if You Seek His Monument, Look Around.'

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Financial History Of The Last Century Shows A Steady Increase In The Amount Of Public Indebtedness. Nobody Believes That The States Will Eternally Drag The Burden Of These Interest Payments. It Is Obvious That Sooner Or Later All These Debts Will Be Liquidated In Some Way Or Other, But Certainly Not By Payment Of Interest And Principal According To The Terms Of The Contract.

The 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.

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

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 Distinctive Principle Of Western Social Philosophy Is Individualism.

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

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

The School Is A Political Prize Of The Highest Importance. It Cannot Be Deprived Of Its Political Character As Long As It Remains A Public And Compulsory Institution.

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.

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

One Day, Because They Realize For Some Reason Or Other That They Must Stop Credit Expansion, The Banks Do Stop Creating New Credit To Lend. Then The Firms That Have Expanded Cannot Get Credit To Pay For The Factors Of Production Necessary For The Completion Of The Investment Projects Which They Have Already Committed Themselves. Because They Cannot Pay Their Bills, They Sell Off Their Inventories Cheap. Then Comes The Panic, The Breakdown. And The Depression Starts.

There 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.

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

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.

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

Historical Knowledge

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Laissez Faire Does Not Mean: Let Soulless Mechanical Forces Operate. It Means: Let Individuals Choose How They Want To Cooperate In The Social Division Of Labor And Let Them Determine What The Entrepreneurs Should Produce.

Division Of Labor

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

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.

Every Socialist Is A Disguised Dictator.

Government Spending Cannot Create Additional Jobs. If The Government Provides The Funds Required By Taxing The Citizens Or By Borrowing From The Public, It Abolishes On The One Hand As Many Jobs As It Creates On The Other.

To The Grumbler Who Complains About The Unfairness Of The Market System Only One Piece Of Advice Can Be Given: If You Want To Acquire Wealth, Then Try To Satisfy The Public By Offering Them Something That Is Cheaper Or Which They Like Better....equality Under The Law Gives You The Power To Challenge Every Millionaire.

Equality Under The Law

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 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 Worst Law Is Better Than Bureaucratic Tyranny.

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

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.

If One Regards Inflation As An Evil, Then One Has To Stop Inflating. One Has To Balance The Budget Of The Government.

Without Calculation, Economic Activity Is Impossible. Since Under Socialism Economic Calculation Is Impossible, Under Socialism There Can Be No Economic Activity In Our Sense Of The Word All Economic Change, Therefore, Would Involve Operations The Value Of Which Could Neither Be Predicted Beforehand Nor Ascertained After They Had Taken Place. Everything Would Be A Leap In The Dark. Socialism Is The Renunciation Of Rational Economy.

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

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

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.

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.

There Is An Inherent Tendency In All Governmental Power To Recognize No Restraints On Its Operation And To Extend The Sphere Of Its Dominion As Much As Possible. To Control Everything, To Leave No Room For Anything To Happen Of Its Own Accord Without The Interference Of The Authorities--th Is Is The Goal For Which Every Ruler Secretly Strives.

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

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.

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

The 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.

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

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.

What Is Lacking To The Underdeveloped Nations Is Not Knowledge, But Capital.

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.

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

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

Government Is Essentially The Negation Of Liberty.

The Law-abiding Citizen By His Labor Serves Both Himself And His Fellow Man And Thereby Integrates Himself Peacefully Into The Social Order. The Robber, On The Other Hand, Is Intent, Not On Honest Toil, But On The Forcible Appropriation Of The Fruits Of Others' Labor.

Freedom And Liberty Always Mean Freedom From Police Interference.

[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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Public Opinion Takes No Offense At The Endeavors Of Farmers, Workers, Clerks, Teachers, Doctors, Ministers, And People From Many Other Callings To Earn As Much As They Can. But It Censures The Capitalists And Entrepreneurs For Their Greed.

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

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

General Welfare

History Can Tell Us What Happened In The Past. But It Cannot Assert That It Must Happen Again In The Future.

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

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.

True, Governments Can Reduce The Rate Of Interest In The Short Run. They Can Issue Additional Paper Money. They Can Open The Way To Credit Expansion By The Banks. They Can Thus Create An Artificial Boom And The Appearance Of Prosperity. But Such A Boom Is Bound To Collapse Soon Or Late And To Bring About A Depression.

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.

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

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

The Market System Makes All Producers Responsible To The Consumer.

Fortunes Cannot Grow; Someone Has To Increase Them.

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

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

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

It Is Impossible To Grasp The Meaning Of The Idea Of Sound Money If One Does Not Realize That It Was Devised As An Instrument For The Protection Of Civil Liberties Against Despotic Inroads On The Part Of Governments.

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.

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.

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.

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

On The Unhampered Market There Prevails An Irresistible Tendency To Employ Every Factor Of Production For The Best Possible Satisfaction Of The Most Urgent Needs Of The Consumers. If The Government Interfered With This Process, It Can Only Impair Satisfaction; It Can Never Improve It.

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