[E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Seen from the point of view of the particular group interests of the bureaucrats, every measure that makes the government's payroll swell… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
In spite of the anticapitalistic policies of all governments and of almost all political parties, the capitalist mode of production — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
If one rejects laissez faire on account of mans fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties were eager… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
As the prosperity of the nation and the height of wage rates depend on a continual increase in the capital invested in… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Government means always coercion and compulsion and is by necessity the opposite of liberty. Government is a guarantor of liberty and is… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Capitalism means free enterprise, sovereignty of the consumers in economic matters, and sovereignty of the voters in political matters. Socialism means full… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation. The whole grim apparatus of… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
History does not provide any example of capital accumulation brought about by a government. As far as governments invested in the construction… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Credit expansion is the governments' foremost tool in their struggle against the market economy. In their hands it is the magic wand… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Welfare policies never attain those - allegedly beneficial - ends which the government and the self-styled progressives who advocated them wanted to… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
It is not the fault of the entrepreneurs that the consumers,the people, the common man,prefer liquor to Bibles and detective stories to… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The characteristic feature of militarism is not the fact that a nation has a powerful army or navy. It is the paramount… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate.… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
“All varieties of the producers' policy are advocated on the ground of their alleged ability to raise the party members' standard of… — Ludwig Von Mises Copy Share Image
It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. Government is in… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The government and its chiefs do not have the powers of the mythical Santa Claus. They cannot spend except by taking out… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The capitalist system, in spite of all obstacles put in its way by governments and politicians, has raised the standard of living… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The essence of Keynesianism is its complete failure to conceive the role that saving and capital accumulation play in the improvement of… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
“The people of the United States are more prosperous…because their government embarked later than other governments…upon the policy of obstructing business” — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
If one regards inflation as an evil, then one has to stop inflating. One has to balance the budget of the government. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Every government intervention [in the marketplace] creates unintended consequences, which lead to calls for further government interventions. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Government is a guarantor of liberty and is compatible with liberty only if its range is adequately restricted to the preservation of… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The interventionist policy (big government) provides thousands and thousands of people with safe, placid, and not too strenuous jobs at the expense… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Government is the only institution that can take a valuable commodity like paper, and make it worthless by applying ink. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
The school is a political prize of the highest importance. It cannot be deprived of its political character as long as it… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Tyranny is the political corollary of socialism, as representative government is the political corollary of the market economy. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Those politicians, professors and union bosses who curse big business are fighting for a lower standard of living. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Inflation is the true opium of the people and it is administered to them by anticapitalist governments and parties. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
Government means always coercion and compulsion and is by necessity the opposite of liberty. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share Image
If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
Changes in human conditions are brought about by the pioneering of the cleverest and most energetic men. They take the lead and the rest… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
During the 2300 years since Plato, very little opposition has been registered to his ideas. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
“How little one is justified in speaking in this connection of "optimism" and "pessimism" and how much the characterization of liberalism as "optimistic" aims… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
Every step by which an individual substitutes concerted action for isolated action results in an immediate and recognizable improvement in his conditions. The advantages… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
The capitalistic social order, therefore, is an economic democracy in the strictest sense of the word. In the last analysis, all decisions are dependent… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
Without calculation, economic activity is impossible. Since under Socialism economic calculation is impossible, under Socialism there can be no economic activity in our sense… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
There is no kind of freedom and liberty other than the kind which the market economy brings about. — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
What counts alone is the innovator, the dissenter, the harbinger of things unheard of, the man who rejects the traditional standards and aims at… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
In reality no food is valued solely for its nutritive power and no garment or house solely for the protection it affords against cold… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
All this talk: the state should do this or that, ultimately means: the police should force consumers to behave otherwise than they would behave… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
The most successful businessmen were often uneducated when measured by the scholastic standards of the teaching profession. But they were equal to their social… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
Two hundred years ago, before the advent of capitalism, a man's social status was fixed from the beginning to the end of his life;… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share
Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, by the ideas and… — Ludwig von Mises Copy Share