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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

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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
Individuals
Institution
State
Harm
Apply
Deem
Upon
Tasks
Entitled
Restrict
Individual
Institutions
Abandoned
Inflict
Cannot
Laws
Application
Coercion
Power
However
Tremendous
Discretion
States
Necessary
Task
Competent
May
Clever
Compulsion
Men
Law

More quotes by Ludwig von Mises

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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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The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation. The whole grim apparatus of oppression and coercion, policemen, customs guards, penal courts, prisons, in some countries even executioners, had to be put into action in order to destroy the gold standard.
Ludwig von Mises
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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.
Ludwig von Mises
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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.
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Socialism is the renunciation of rational economy.
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While under precapitalistic conditions superior men were the masters on whom the masses of the inferior had to attend, under capitalism the more gifted and more able have no means to profit from their superiority other than to serve to the best of their abilities the wishes of the majority of the less gifted.
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The final outcome of the credit expansion is general impoverishment.
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In talking about equality and asking vehemently for its realization, nobody advocates a curtailment of his own present income.
Ludwig von Mises
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The policy of letting the free market determine the height of wage rates is the only reasonable and successful full-employment policy.
Ludwig von Mises
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Permanent mass unemployment destroys the moral foundations of the social order. The young people, who, having finished their training for work, are forced to remain idle, are the ferment out of which the most radical political movements are formed. In their ranks the soldiers of the coming revolutions are recruited.
Ludwig von Mises
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All varieties of interference with the market phenomena not only fail to achieve the ends aimed at by their authors and supporters, but bring about a state of affairs which - from the point of view of their authors and advocates valuations - is less desirable than the previous state of affairs which they were designed to alter.
Ludwig von Mises
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Society is only possible on these terms, that the individual finds therein a strengthening of his own ego and his own will.
Ludwig von Mises
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Socialism and interventionism. Both have in common the goal of subordinating the individual unconditionally to the state.
Ludwig von Mises
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Violent resistance against the power of the state is the last resort of the minority in its effort to break loose from the oppression of the majority. ... The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state.
Ludwig von Mises
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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.
Ludwig von Mises
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The idea of Socialism is at once grandiose and simple. . .We may say, in fact, that it is one of the most ambitious creations of the human spirit, . . .so magnificent, so daring, that it has rightly aroused the greatest admiration. If we wish to save the world from barbarism we have to refute Socialism, but we cannot thrust it carelessly aside.
Ludwig von Mises
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The interventionist policy (big government) provides thousands and thousands of people with safe, placid, and not too strenuous jobs at the expense of the rest of society.
Ludwig von Mises
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The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties were eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise.
Ludwig von Mises
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History has witnessed the failure of many endeavors to impose peace by war, cooperation by coercion, unanimity by slaughtering dissidents.... A lasting order cannot be established by bayonets.
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