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The desire for an increase of wealth can be satisfied through exchange, which is the only method possible in a capitalist economy, or by violence and petition as in a militarist society, where the strong acquire by force, the weak by petitioning.

Ludwig von Mises

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Ludwig von Mises
Age: 92 †
Born: 1881
Born: September 29
Died: 1973
Died: October 10
Economist
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Lemberg
Austria
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Mises
Society
Capitalism
Militarist
Force
Method
Petition
Desire
Increase
Petitions
Strong
Weak
Exchange
Wealth
Capitalist
Violence
Socialism
Economy
Acquire
Possible
Satisfied

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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.
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The boom is called good business, prosperity, and upswing. Its unavoidable aftermath, the readjustment of conditions to the real data of the market, is called crisis, slump, bad business, depression.
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Anarchism misunderstands the real nature of man. It would be practicable only in a world of angels and saints
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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.
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The average American worker enjoys amenities for which Croesus, Crassus, the Medici, and Louis XIV would have envied him.
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Progress of any kind is always at variance with the old and established ideas and therefore with the codes inspired by them. Every step of progress is a change involving heavy risks.
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The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties were eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise.
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Socialism and interventionism. Both have in common the goal of subordinating the individual unconditionally to the state.
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The entrepreneur profits to the extent he has succeeded in serving the consumers better than other people have done.
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Neither the entrepreneurs nor the farmers nor the capitalists determine what has to be produced. The consumers do that.
Ludwig von Mises
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No one can escape the influence of a prevailing ideology.
Ludwig von Mises
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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.
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Not mythical material productive forces, but reason and ideas determine the course of human affairs. What is needed to stop the trend toward socialism and despotism is common-sense and moral courage.
Ludwig von Mises
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Western civilization is based upon the libertarian principle, and all its achievements are the results of the action of free men.
Ludwig von Mises
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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.
Ludwig von Mises
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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.
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In the long run even the most despotic governments with all their brutality and cruelty are no match for ideas. Eventually the ideology that has won the support of the majority will prevail and cut the ground from under the tyrant's feet. Then the oppressed many will rise in rebellion and overthrow their masters.
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The uncouth hordes of common men are not fit to recognize duly the merits of those who eclipse their own wretchedness.
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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.
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where Nietzsche's response to the equation of socialism and morality was to question the value of morality, at least as it had been customarily understood, economists like Mises and Hayek pursued a different path, one Nietzsche would never have dared to take: they made the market the very expression of morality.
Ludwig von Mises