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The truth is that most people lack the intellectual ability and courage to resist a popular movement, however pernicious and ill-considered.

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
People
However
Intellectual
Courage
Pernicious
Movement
Resist
Politics
Ill
Ability
Popular
Truth
Considered
Life
Lack

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There is no other planning for freedom and general welfare than to let the market system work.
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Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life that can be separated from the rest it is the control of the means for all our ends.
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What economic calculation requires is a monetary system whose functioning is not sabotaged by government interference.
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It is not enough for [the investor] to know all the factors that can possibly contribute to the determination of a future event. In order to anticipate correctly they must also anticipate correctly the quantity as it were of each factor's contribution and the instant at which its contribution will become effective.
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What impels every man to the utmost exertion in the service of his fellow man. Is, in the market not compulsion on the part of gendarmes, hangmen and penal courts, it is self interest.
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It is inherent in the nature of the capitalistic economy that, in the final analysis, the employment of the factors of production is aimed only toward serving the wishes of consumers.
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Government policies try to prevent the emergence of serious unemployment by credit expansion, i.e., inflation. The outcome was rising prices, renewed demands for higher wages and reiterated credit expansion in short, protracted inflation.
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Under a socialist mode of production all personal incentives which selfishness provides under capitalism are removed, and a premium is put upon laziness and negligence. Whereas in a capitalist society selfishness incites everyone to the utmost diligence, in a socialist society it makes for inertia and laxity.
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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.
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Public opinion always wants easy money, that is, low interest rates.
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He who disdains the fall in infant mortality and the gradual disappearance of famines and plagues may cast the first stone upon the materialism of the economists.
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Competition on the market aims at assigning to every individual that function in the social system in which he can render to all his fellow men the most valuable of the services he is able to perform.
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If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury, democracy is done for.
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All this talk: the state should do this or that, ultimately means: the police should force consumers to behave otherwise than they would behave spontaneously.
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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.
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The only source of the generation of additional capital goods is saving. If all the goods produced are consumed, no new capital comes into being.
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Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments.
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Capitalism has improved the standard of living of the wage earners to an unprecedented extent. The average American family enjoys today amenities of which, only a hundred years ago, not even the richest nabobs dreamed.
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A short time ago the demagogues blamed capitalism for the poverty of the masses. Today they rather blame capitalism for the affluence that it bestows upon the common man.
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