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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.

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
Ideas
Argument
Dominated
Reason
Courses
Arguments
Must
Course
Catastrophe
Great
Public
Collapse
Mind
Politics
Investing
Life
Running
Rational
Political
Decades
Cannot
Otherwise
Refuted

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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.
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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.
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What vitiates entirely the socialists economic critique of capitalism is their failure to grasp the sovereignty of the consumers in the market economy.
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A new type of superstition has got hold of people's minds, the worship of the state.
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Capital does not 'beget profit' as Marx thought. The capital goods as such are dead things that in themselves do not accomplish anything. If they are utilized according to a good idea, profit results. If they are utilized according to a mistaken idea, no profit or losses result. It is the entrepreneurial decision that creates either profit or loss.
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The prerequisite for more economic equality in the world is industrialization. And this is possible only through increased capital investment, increased capital accumulation.
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This dilettantish inability to comprehend the essential issues of the conduct of production affairs is not only manifested in the writings of Marx and Engels. It permeates no less the contributions of contemporary pseudo-economics.
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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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Governments, political parties, pressure groups, and the bureaucrats of the educational hierarchy think they can avoid the inevitable consequences of unsuitable measures by boycotting and silencing the independent economists. But truth persists and works, even if nobody is left to utter it.
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The capitalist system was termed capitalism not by a friend of the system, but by an individual who considered it to be the worst of all historical systems, the greatest evil that had ever befallen mankind. That man was Karl Marx.
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Every man aims at avoiding what causes him pain the activities of government ultimately consist in the infliction of pain. All great achievements of mankind were the product of a spontaneous effort on the part of individuals government substitutes coercion for voluntary action.
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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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There is, in fact, only one solution: the state, the government, the laws must not in any way concern themselves with schooling or education. Public funds must not be used for such purposes. The rearing and instruction of youth must be left entirely to parents and to private associations and institutions
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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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In spite of the anticapitalistic policies of all governments and of almost all political parties, the capitalist mode of production
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It is extremely difficult for our contemporaries to conceive of the conditions of free banking because they take government interference with banking for granted and as necessary.
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It is certain that many intellectuals envy the higher income of prosperous businessmen and that these feelings drive them toward socialism. They believe that the authorities of a socialist commonwealth would pay them higher salaries than those that they earn under capitalism.
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Men are fighting one another because they are convinced that the extermination and liquidation of adversaries is the only means of promoting their own well-being.
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He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits.
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It is the rule of law alone which hinders the rulers from turning themselves into the worst gangsters.
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