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

-Ludwig Von Mises

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The State Is The

Ludwig Von Mises

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

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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.

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.'

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

The History Of Mankind Is The History Of Ideas.

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 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.

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

Louis Xiv Was Very Frank And Sincere When He Said: I Am The State. The Modern Statist Is Modest. He Says: I Am The Servant Of The State; But, He Implies, The State Is God. You Could Revolt Against A Bourbon King, And The French Did It. This Was, Of Course, A Struggle Of Man Against Man. But You Cannot Revolt Against The God State And Against His Humble Handy Man, The Bureaucrat.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

What Can Prevent The Coming Of Totalitarian Socialism Is Only A Thorough Change In Ideologies. What We Need Is An Open Positive Endorsement Of That System To Which We Owe All The Wealth That Distinguished Our Age From The Conditions Of Ages Gone By.

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

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.

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

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

The Continued Existence Of Society Depends Upon Private Property.

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

Some Think That They Will Exercise Power For The General Good, But That Is What All Those With Power Have Believed. Power Is Evil In Itself, Regardless Of Who Exercises It.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Modern Society, Based As It Is On The Division Of Labor, Can Be Preserved Only Under Conditions Of Lasting Peace.

Division Of Labor

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.

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.

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.

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.

Taxes Are Necessary. But The System Of Discriminatory Taxation Universally Accepted Under The Misleading Name Of Progressive Taxation Of Income And Inheritance Is Not A Mode Of Taxation. It Is Rather A Mode Of Disguised Expropriation Of The Successful Capitalists And Entrepreneurs.

Progressive Taxation

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

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

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

A Citizen Who Casts His Ballot Without Having To The Best Of His Abilities Studied As Much Economics As He Can Fails In His Civic Duties.

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 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.

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.

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

Capitalism Has Improved The Standard Of Living Of The Wage Earners To An Unprecedented Extent. The Average American Family Enjoys Today Amenities Of Which, Only A Hundred Years Ago, Not Even The Richest Nabobs Dreamed.

Against Nature And Within Nature There Is No Freedom.

The Main Propoganda Trick Of Supporters Of The Allegedly "progressive" Policy Of Government Control Is To Blame Capitalism For All That Is Unsatisfactory In Present-day Conditions And To Extol The Blessings Of Socialism. They Have Never Attempted To Prove Their Fallacious Dogmas, All They Did Was To Call Their Adversaries Names And Cast Suspicion Upon Their Motives. And, Unfortunately, The Average Citizen Cannot See Through These Stratagems. The Liars Must Be Afraid Of The Truth And Are Therefore Driven To Suppress Its Pronouncement.

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

What Is A Loophole? If The Law Does Not Punish A Definite Action Or Does Not Tax A Definite Thing, This Is Not A Loophole. It Is Simply The Law.

All Almsgiving Inevitably Tends To Pauperize The Recipient.

The System That Would Stand Midway Between Capitalism And Socialism.

Capitalism And Socialism

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 Vigorous Man Industriously Striving For The Improvement Of His Condition Acts Neither More Nor Less Than The Lethargic Man Who Sluggishly Takes Things As They Come. For To Do Nothing And To Be Idle Are Also Action, They Too Determine The Course Of Events.

In Order To Succeed In Business A Man Does Not Need A Degree From A School Of Business Administration. These Schools Train The Subalterns For Routine Jobs. They Certainly Do Not Train Entrepreneurs.

The 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Industrialization

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

Historical Knowledge

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Men Who Are To Protect The Community Against Violent Aggression Easily Turn Into The Most Dangerous Aggressors. They Transgress Their Mandate. They Misuse Their Power For The Oppression Of Those Whom They Were Expected To Defend Against Oppression. The Main Political Problem Is How To Prevent The Police Power From Becoming Tyrannical. This Is The Meaning Of All The Struggles For Liberty.

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

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

There Are For Man Only Two Principles Available For A Mental Grasp Of Reality, Namely, Those Of Teleology And Causality. What Cannot Be Brought Under Either Of These Categories Is Absolutely Hidden To The Human Mind. An Event Not Open To An Interpretation By One Of These Two Principles Is For Man Inconceivable And Mysterious. Change Can Be Conceived As The Outcome Either Of The Operation Of Mechanistic Causality Or Of Purposeful Behavior; For The Human Mind There Is No Third Way Available.

Manufacturing And Commercial Monopolies Owe Their Origin Not To A Tendency Imminent In A Capitalist Economy But To Governmental Interventionist Policy Directed Against Free Trade And Laissez Faire.

Capitalist Economy

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.

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.

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

Under Capitalism The Common Man Enjoys Amenities Which In Ages Gone By Were Unknown And Therefore Inaccessible Even To The Richest People. But, Of Course, These Motorcars, Television Sets And Refrigerators Do Not Make A Man Happy. In The Instant In Which He Acquires Them, He May Feel Happier Than He Did Before. But As Soon As Some Of His Wishes Are Satisfied, New Wishes Spring Up. Such Is Human Nature.

Unemployment Doles Can Have No Other Effect Than The Perpetuation Of Unemployment.

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.

It Is Impossible To Understand The History Of Economic Thought If One Does Not Pay Attention To The Fact That Economics As Such Is A Challenge To The Conceit Of Those In Power.

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.

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

Liberalism Must Be Intolerant Of Every Sort Of Intolerance.

What Pushes The Masses Into The Camp Of Socialism Is, Even More Than The Illusion That Socialism Will Make Them Richer, The Expectation That It Will Curb All Those Who Are Better Than They Themselves Are.

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.

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.

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.

Capital Does Not 'beget Profit' As Marx Thought. The Capital Goods As Such Are Dead Things That In Themselves Do Not Accomplish Anything. If They Are Utilized According To A Good Idea, Profit Results. If They Are Utilized According To A Mistaken Idea, No Profit Or Losses Result. It Is The Entrepreneurial Decision That Creates Either Profit Or Loss.

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

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

If History Could Prove And Teach Us Anything, It Would Be The Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production As A Necessary Requisite Of Civilization And Material Well-being. All Civilizations Have Up To Now Been Based On Private Property. Only Nations Committed To The Principle Of Private Property Have Risen Above Penury And Produced Science, Art, And Literature. There Is No Experience To Show That Any Other Social System Could Provide Mankind With Any Of The Achievements Of Civilization.

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

It Is Labor Alone That Is Productive: It Creates Wealth And Therewith Lays The Outward Foundations For The Inward Flowering Of Man.

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.

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

In A Battle Between Force And An Idea, The Latter Always Prevails.

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

Notwithstanding All The Passionate Fulminations Of The Spokesmen Of Governments, The Inevitable Consequences Of Inflationism And Expansionism...are Coming To Pass. And Then, Very Late Indeed, Even Simple People Will Discover That Keynes Did Not Teach Us How To Perform The 'miracle...of Turning A Stone Into Bread,' But The Not At All Miraculous Procedure Of Eating The Seed Corn.

The Bureaucrat Is Not Free To Aim At Improvement. He Is Bound To Obey Rules And Regulations Established By A Superior Body. He Has No Right To Embark Upon Innovations If His Superiors Do Not Approve Of Them. His Duty And His Virtue Is To Be Obedient.

Rules And Regulations

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

This Dilettantish Inability To Comprehend The Essential Issues Of The Conduct Of Production Affairs Is Not Only Manifested In The Writings Of Marx And Engels. It Permeates No Less The Contributions Of Contemporary Pseudo-economics.

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.

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

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

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.

Civilization Is A Work Of Peaceful Co-operation.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

This, Then, Is Freedom In The External Life Of Man-that He Is Independent Of The Arbitrary Power Of His Fellows.

Inflation Is The True Opium Of The People And It Is Administered To Them By Anticapitalist Governments And Parties.

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.

Socialism Is Not An Alternative To Capitalism; It Is An Alternative To Any System Under Which Men Can Live As Human Beings.

Economic Prosperity Is Not So Much A Material Problem; It Is, First Of All, An Intellectual, Spiritual, And Moral Problem.

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.

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

Government Is An Apparatus Of Compulsion And Coercion.

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.

Wars Of Aggression Are Popular Nowadays With Those Nations Convinced That Only Victory And Conquest Could Improve Their Material Well-being.

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

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.

The Final Outcome Of The Credit Expansion Is General Impoverishment.

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.

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

The Uncouth Hordes Of Common Men Are Not Fit To Recognize Duly The Merits Of Those Who Eclipse Their Own Wretchedness.

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.

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.

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 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.

The Characteristic Feature Of A Free Society Is That It Can Function In Spite Of The Fact That Its Members Disagree In Many Judgments Of Value. Freedom Really Means The Freedom To Make Mistakes.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

He Who Disdains The Fall In Infant Mortality And The Gradual Disappearance Of Famines And Plagues May Cast The First Stone Upon The Materialism Of The Economists.

You Know That The Population Is Of This Planet Is Now Ten Times Greater Than It Was In The Ages Preceding Capitalism.; You Know That All Men Today Enjoy A Higher Standard Of Living Than Your Ancestors Did Before The Age Of Capitalism. But How Do You Know That You Are The One Out Of Ten Who Would Have Lived In The Absence Of Capitalism? The Mere Fact That You Are Living Today Is Proof That Capitalism Has Succeeded, Whether Or Not You Consider Your Own Life Very Valuable.

The Worst Law Is Better Than Bureaucratic Tyranny.

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.

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

No One Can Escape The Influence Of A Prevailing Ideology.

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.

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.

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 Democracy Of The Market Consists In The Fact That People Themselves Make Their Choices And That No Dictator Has The Power To Force Them To Submit To His Value Judgments.

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.

The Attainment Of The Economic Aims Of Man Presupposes Peace.

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.

The Worship Of The State Is The Worship Of Force. There Is No More Dangerous Menace To Civilization Than A Government Of Incompetent, Corrupt, Or Vile Men. The Worst Evils Which Mankind Ever Had To Endure Were Inflicted By Governments.

The 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.

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.

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

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

The 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.

Capitalists Have The Tendency To Move Toward Those Countries In Which There Is Plenty Of Labor Available And At Which Labor Is Reasonable. And By The Fact That They Bring Capital Into These Countries, They Bring About A Trend Toward Higher Wage Rates.

The Mixing Of Politics And Business Not Only Is Detrimental To Politics, As Is Frequently Observed, But Even Much More So To Business.

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

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

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.

Many Pioneers Of These Industrial Changes, It Is True, Became Rich. But They Acquired Their Wealth By Supplying The Public With Motor Cars, Airplanes, Radio Sets, Refrigerators, Moving And Talking Pictures, And Variety Of Less Spectacular But No Less Useful Innovations. These New Products Were Certainly Not An Achievement Of Offices And Bureaucrats.

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.

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

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

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

We Must Fight All That We Dislike In Public Life. We Must Substitute Better Ideas For Wrong Ideas.

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

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

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.

Economically Considered, War And Revolution Are Always Bad Business.

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

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

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

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Navjot Singh Sidhu

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