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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.

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
Society
Socialist
Inertia
Upon
Capitalist
Diligence
Everyone
Selfishness
Utmost
Makes
Whereas
Incentives
Production
Mode
Laxity
Productions
Removed
Incites
Capitalism
Laziness
Negligence
Personal
Provides
Premium

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What makes the existence and the evolution of society possible is precisely the fact that peaceful cooperation under the social division of labor in the long run best serves the selfish concerns of all individuals. The eminence of the market society is that its whole functioning and operation is the consummation of this principle.
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There is no such thing as a just and fair method of exercising the tremendous power that interventionism puts into the hands of the legislature and the executive.
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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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Assistance granted to the unemployed does not dispose of unemployment. It makes it easier for the unemployed to remain idle.
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One has to recognize that science is not metaphysics, and certainly not mysticism it can never bring us the illumination and the satisfaction experienced by one enraptured in ecstasy. Science is sobriety and clarity of conception, not intoxicated vision.
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To the masses, the catchwords of Socialism sound so enticing... so they will continue to work for Socialism, helping thereby to bring about the inevitable decline of the civilization which the nations of the West have taken thousands of years to build up.
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Under capitalism everybody is the architect of his own fortune.
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In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails.
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The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.
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Nobody is in a position to decree what should make a fellow man happier.
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The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it.
Ludwig von Mises
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A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.
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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.
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The egalitarian doctrine is manifestly contrary to all the facts established by biology and by history. Only fanatical partisans of this theory can contend that what distinguishes the genius from the dullard is entirely the effect of postnatal influences.
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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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He who only wishes and hopes does not interfere actively with the course of events and with the shaping of his own destiny.
Ludwig von Mises