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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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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
Force
Needed
Affair
Sense
Liberty
Forces
Mythical
Ideas
Economic
Economics
Despotism
Reason
Stop
Determine
Trend
Human
Courses
Material
Trends
Humans
Course
Materials
Affairs
Moral
Toward
Socialism
Common
Courage
Productive

More quotes by Ludwig von Mises

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...this remedy is the power of the citizens they have to prevent the establishment of such an autocratic regime that arrogates to itself a higher wisdom than that of the average citizen. This is the fundamental difference between freedom and serfdom.
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Two hundred years ago, before the advent of capitalism, a man's social status was fixed from the beginning to the end of his life he inherited it from his ancestors and it never changed.
Ludwig von Mises
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In the socialist commonwealth every economic change becomes an undertaking whose success can be neither appraised in advance nor later retrospectively determined. There is only groping in the dark. Socialism is the abolition of rational economy.
Ludwig von Mises
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All those evils which the [liberals] interpret as evidence of the failure of capitalism, are the necessary outcome of interference with the market.
Ludwig von Mises
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Science does not give us absolute and final certainty. It only gives us assurance within the limits of our mental abilities and the prevailing state of scientific thought.
Ludwig von Mises
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In order to succeed in business a man does not need a degree from a school of business administration. These schools train the subalterns for routine jobs. They certainly do not train entrepreneurs.
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Our whole civilization rests on the fact that men have always succeeded in beating off the attack of the re-distributors.
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If some peoples pretend that history or geography gives them the right to subjugate other races, nations, or peoples, there can be no peace.
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There is simply no other choice than this: either to abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way.
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All the talk about the so-called unspeakable horror of early capitalism can be refuted by a single statistic: precisely in these years in which British capitalism developed, precisely in the age called the Industrial Revolution in England, in the years from 1760 to 1830, precisely in those years the population of England doubled.
Ludwig von Mises
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The history of mankind is the history of ideas. For it is ideas, theories, and doctrines that guide human action, determine the ultimate ends men aim at, and the choice of the means employed for the attainment of these ends.
Ludwig von Mises
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All people, entrepreneurs as well as non-entrepreneurs, look askance upon any profits earned by other people. Envy is a common weakness of men. People are loath to acknowledge the fact that they themselves could have earned profits if they had displayed the same foresight and judgment the successful businessman did.
Ludwig von Mises
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Every collectivist assumes a different source for the collective will, according to his own political, religious and national convictions.
Ludwig von Mises
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To the grumbler who complains about the unfairness of the market system only one piece of advice can be given: If you want to acquire wealth, then try to satisfy the public by offering them something that is cheaper or which they like better....Equality under the law gives you the power to challenge every millionaire.
Ludwig von Mises
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The consumers are asking for, they lose their office. Their task is service to the consumer. Profit and loss are the instruments by means of which the consumers keep a tight rein on all business activities.
Ludwig von Mises
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Business is a means- the only means- to increase the quantity of goods available for preserving life and rendering it more agreeable.
Ludwig von Mises
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Government and state can never be perfect because they owe their raison d'être to the imperfection of man and can attain their end, the elimination of man's innate impulse to violence, only by recourse to violence, the very thing they are called upon to prevent.
Ludwig von Mises
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Nothing, however, is as ill founded as the assertion of the alleged equality of all members of the human race.
Ludwig von Mises
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As the science of economics...exploded the fallacies of every brand of utopianism, it was outlawed and stigmatized as unscientific.
Ludwig von Mises
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Every restriction of trade creates vested interests that are from then on opposed to its removal.
Ludwig von Mises