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Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production.

Ludwig von Mises

The issue is always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Always Government Issues Liberty Solution
The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Course Disaster Liberty Mischief Often Peace Source State War
A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Between Capitalism Choose Socialism Society System
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Call Destroy Done Economic Growth Interfere Life Nothing Policy Regulation State
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Additional Borrow Citizen Fund Government Job Provide Spend Taxi
Government is the only institution that can take a valuable commodity like paper, and make it worthless by applying ink.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Apply Government Ink Institution Paper Take Valuable Worthless
Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Alternative Being Capitalism Human Men Politics Socialism System
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Authoritarian Create Enslave Limit Operation Private Property Set
Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Creative Genius Innovator Men School Taught
Every government intervention [in the marketplace] creates unintended consequences, which lead to calls for further government interventions.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Call Consequences Government Intervention Marketplace Unintended
It is vain to fight totalitarianism by adopting totalitarian methods. Freedom can only be won by men unconditionally committed to the principles of freedom.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Adopt Fight Method Totalitarian Vain
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Approach Distinteretedness Economic Entrepreneur Interventionist Liberty Matter People Scientific Study
For destruction is the essence of it. It produces nothing, it only consumes what the social order based on private ownership in the means of production has created.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Create Destruction Essence Private Production Social
Capitalism gave the world what it needed, a higher standard of living for a steadily increasing number of people.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Capitalism Need Number People Standard Steadily World
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Act God Important Inflation Most Remember Things
Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Doctor Hard Most Renowned Self University Work
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Adversaries Average Call Name Stratagem Suspicion Unfortunately
The final outcome of the credit expansion is general impoverishment.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Credit Expansion Final General Impoverishment Outcome
This is what capitalism, the much abused profit system, has brought about and brings about daily anew. Yet, most present-day governments and political parties are eager to destroy this system.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Abuse Capitalism Destroy Eager Government Most Profit System Yet
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Beat Enforcement Essential Government Kill
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Attribute Bosses Easy Make Men Profit Result Stem
A free press can only exist where there is private control over the means of production
LUDWIG VON MISES

Control Free Mean Over Press Private Production
The gold standard makes the money’s purchasing power independent of the changing, ambitions and doctrines of political parties and pressure groups. This is not a defect of the gold standard; it is its main excellence.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Ambition Change Defeat Doctrine Excellent Independent Make Money Party Political Purchase Standard
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Disagree Fact Function Judgement Mean Member Mistake Society Value
Tyranny is the political corollary of socialism, as representative government is the political corollary of the market economy.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Corollary Economic Government Market Political Representative Socialism
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Anybody Effort Entrepreneur Poverty Successful
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Bless Championship Characteristics Garden Men Observation Progressive Recommend Routine Socialism System

Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production.

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Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production.

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