Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Miseswas a theoretical Austrian School economist. He is best known for his work on praxeology, a study of human choice and action. Mises emigrated from Austria to the United States in 1940. Mises's writings have exerted significant influence on the libertarian movement in the United States since the mid-20th century...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth29 September 1881
CountryAustria
running attitude real
The real bosses in the capitalist system of market economy are the consumers. They by their buying and by their abstention from buying decide who should own the capital and run the plants. They determine what should be produced and in what quantity and quality. Their attitudes result either in profit or in loss for the enterpriser. They make poor men rich and rich men poor. They are no easy bosses.
taken dark would-be
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.
people entrepreneur done
The entrepreneur profits to the extent he has succeeded in serving the consumers better than other people have done.
progress coercion resistance
The whole of mankind's progress has had to be achieved against the resistance and opposition of the state and its power of coercion.
taken magic liberty
Public works are not accomplished by the miraculous power of a magic wand. They are paid for by funds taken away from the citizens.
views liberty failing
All varieties of interference with the market phenomena not only fail to achieve the ends aimed at by their authors and supporters, but bring about a state of affairs which - from the point of view of their authors and advocates valuations - is less desirable than the previous state of affairs which they were designed to alter.
exercise thinking evil
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.
government new-inventions patents
If the government objects to monopoly prices for new inventions, it should stop granting patents.
running government issues
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.
war father essence
Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things.
people want dictator
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.
profit
Taxing profits is tantamount to taxing success.
exercise idols people
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!
freedom government law
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.