Ludwig von Mises Quotes

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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Answer Change Cooperative Division Economical Free Individual Labor Market Mean Mena Simple System
It is the soil in which the seeds of freedom are nurtured and in which the autonomy of the individual and ultimately all intellectual and material progress are rooted.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Autonomy Freedom Individual Intellectual Nurture Progress Root Soil Ultimately
The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by governments.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Endure Evil Government Infected Mankind Worst
The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Abandonment Alternative Come Currency Expansion Involved Sooner Voluntary Whether
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Constitution Direct Freedom Government Illusory Law Market Other System
The only source from which an entrepreneurs profits stem is his ability to anticipate better than other people the future demand of the consumers.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Ability Anticipate Demand Entrepreneur Future Other People Profit Source Stem
They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Aboish Democrat Dictatorship Government Liberal Revolution Themselves Upon
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
German Marxian’s coined the dictum: If socialism is against human nature, then human nature must be changed.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Against Change Coin Country Human Human Nature Nature Philosophy Political Socialism
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Catchwork Domination Matter Other Person Popular Reliance Vital Yield
Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Arm Employment Gendarme Government Hangmen Last Prison Resort Soldier
Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Depression Government Interference Market Mass Unemployment
The whole grim apparatus of oppression and coercion, policemen, customs guards, penal courts, prisons, in some countries even executioners, had to be put into action in order to destroy the gold standard.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Action Apparatus Coercion Country Cutsom Gold Pencil Policemen Standard
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Against Gainst Man Men Minority Struggle Survival
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
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
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
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
Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Agree Liberty Meaningless Only Power
Every socialist is a disguised dictator.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Dictator Disguise Socialist
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
LUDWIG VON MISES

Capitalism Fanatical Fighting Homage Implicity Liberty Passionately People Zeal
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.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Attitude Boss Capital Consumer Economic Market Real Running 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
True, governments can reduce the rate of interest in the short run. They can issue additional paper money.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Additional Government Interest Issue Money Paper Rate Reduce Run Running Short
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

Compromise Death Happiness Liberty Mean Misery Ownership Prefer Suffering
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
He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits.
LUDWIG VON MISES

Best Highest Make Profit Public Service

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