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

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Political ideas that have dominated the public mind for decades cannot be refuted through rational arguments. They must run their course in life and cannot collapse otherwise than in great catastrophe.
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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.
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The inequality of income and fortunes is essential in capitalism.
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There is no use in deceiving ourselves. American public opinion rejects the market economy, the capitalistic free enterprise system that provided the nation with the highest standard of living ever attained. Full government control of all activities of the individual is virtually the goal of both national parties.
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As soon as the economic freedom which the market economy grants to its members is removed, all political liberties and bills of rights become humbug.
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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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In the world of reality, life, and human action there is no such thing as interests independent of ideas, preceding them temporarily and logically. What a man considers his interest is the result of his ideas.
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It is always the individual who thinks. Society does not think any more than it eats or drinks. The evolution of human reasoning from the naive thinking of primitive man to the more subtle thinking of modern science took place within society. However, thinking itself is always an achievement of individuals.
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The market system is the basis of our civilization. Its only alternative is the Führer principle.
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The socialist system, however, forbids this fundamental freedom to choose one's own career. Under socialist conditions, there is only one economic authority, and it has the right to determine all matters concerning production.
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Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
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Resentment is at work when one so hates somebody for his more favorable circumstances that one is prepared to bear heavy losses if only the hated one might also come to harm. Many of those who attack capitalism know very well that their situation under any other economic system will be less favorable.
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Economically considered, war and revolution are always bad business.
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You call it a 'loophole' when the government still allows you some freedom.
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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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Economic theory has demonstrated in an irrefutable way that a prosperity created by an expansionist monetary and credit policy is illusory and must end in a slump, an economic crisis.
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He who only wishes and hopes does not interfere actively with the course of events and with the shaping of his own destiny.
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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.
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Some experts have declared that it is necessary to tax the people until it hurts. I disagree with these sadists.
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All present-day governments are fanatically committed to an easy money policy.
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