Quote

Capital is not a free gift of God or of nature. It is the outcome of a provident restriction of consumption on the part of man. It is created and increased by saving and maintained by the abstention from dissaving.

Ludwig von Mises

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Created
Restriction
Free
Increased
Nature
Outcome
Part
Consumption
Men
Outcomes
Capital
Provident
Saving
Abstention
Gift
Maintained

More quotes by Ludwig von Mises

Image
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.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
The foundation of any and every civilization, including our own, is private ownership of the means of production. Whoever wishes to criticize modern civilization, therefore, begins with private property.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
Only to bureaucrats can the idea occur that establishing new offices, promulgating new decrees, and increasing the number of government employees alone can be described as positive and beneficial measures.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
Planning other people's actions means to prevent them from planning for themselves, means to deprive them of their essentially human quality, means enslaving them.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
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.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
On the unhampered market there prevails an irresistible tendency to employ every factor of production for the best possible satisfaction of the most urgent needs of the consumers. If the government interfered with this process, it can only impair satisfaction it can never improve it.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
Nobody is in a position to decree what should make a fellow man happier.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
The state is the only institution entitled to apply coercion and compulsion and to inflict harm upon individuals. This tremendous power cannot be abandoned to the discretion of some men, however competent and clever they may deem themselves. It is necessary to restrict its application. This is the task of the laws.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
There would not be any profits but for the eagerness of the public to acquire the merchandise offered for sale by the successful entrepreneur. But the same people who scramble for these articles vilify the businessman and call his profit ill-got.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
In spite of the anticapitalistic policies of all governments and of almost all political parties, the capitalist mode of production
Ludwig von Mises
Image
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.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
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.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
Every restriction of trade creates vested interests that are from then on opposed to its removal.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
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.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
Mankind does not drink alcohol because there are breweries, distilleries, and vineyards men brew beer, distill spirits, and grow grapes because of the demand for alcoholic drinks.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
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.
Ludwig von Mises
Image
The issue is always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution.
Ludwig von Mises