Ludwig Von Mises Quotes
For it is an essential difference between capitalist and socialist production that under capitalism men provide for themselves, while under Socialism they are provided for.
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.
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 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.
The meaning of economic freedom is this: that the individual is in a position to choose the way in which he wants to integrate himself into the totality of society.
What makes small business develop into big business is not spending, but saving and capital accumulation.
The masses favor socialism because they trust the socialist propaganda of the intellectuals. The intellectuals, not the populace, are molding public opinion.
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.
The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it.
Continued adherence to a policy of compulsory education is utterly incompatible with efforts to establish lasting peace.
Tyranny is the political corollary of socialism, as representative government is the political corollary of the market economy.
The Marxians love of democratic institutions was a stratagem only, a pious fraud for the deception of the masses. Within a socialist community there is no room left for freedom.
If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.
What counts alone is the innovator, the dissenter, the harbinger of things unheard of, the man who rejects the traditional standards and aims at substituting new values and ideas for old ones.
The causes of all panics, crashes and depressions can be summed up in only four words: the misuse of credit.
Economic prosperity is not so much a material problem; it is, first of all, an intellectual, spiritual, and moral problem.
The word "Capitalism" expresses, for our age, the sum of all evil. Even the opponents of Socialism are dominated by socialist ideas.
The uncouth hordes of common men are not fit to recognize duly the merits of those who eclipse their own wretchedness.
A country becomes more prosperous in proportion to the rise in the invested capital unit per unit of its population.
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.
War can really cause no economic boom, at least not directly, since an increase in wealth never does result from destruction of goods.
Changes in human conditions are brought about by the pioneering of the cleverest and most energetic men. They take the lead and the rest of mankind follows them little by little.
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.
It is the rule of law alone which hinders the rulers from turning themselves into the worst gangsters.
A free press can only exist where there is private control over the means of production
The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.
Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
Every restriction of trade creates vested interests that are from then on opposed to its removal.
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.
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.
Some experts have declared that it is necessary to tax the people until it hurts. I disagree with these sadists.
The policy of letting the free market determine the height of wage rates is the only reasonable and successful full-employment policy.
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.
The superiority of the gold standard consists in the fact that the value of gold develops independent of political actions.
It is merely a metaphor to call competition competitive war, or simply, war. The function of battle is destruction; of competition, construction.
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.
Inflation is the true opium of the people and it is administered to them by anticapitalist governments and parties.
This, then, is freedom in the external life of man-that he is independent of the arbitrary power of his fellows.
