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Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises Quotes

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Famous Ludwig von Mises Quotes

“It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend.”

ThinkingKnowsWantMeanLongImportantStatesGovernmentAbleActionRememberPurposeTaxesPaidThreatAffairViolentResistanceFundHopelessOfferingTaxationTaxpayersDisobedienceInterference
Book:Human Action
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“A new type of superstition has got hold of people's minds, the worship of the state. People demand the exercise of the methods of coercion and compulsion, of violence and threat. Woe to anybody who does not bend his knee to the fashionable idols!”

PeopleMindDoeStatesViolenceTypeExerciseDemandWorshipMethodThreatKneesIdolsSuperstitionsWoeCompulsionCoercionFashionable
Book:Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War
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“Private property creates for the individual a sphere in which he is free of the state. It sets limits to the operation of the authoritarian will. It allows other forces to arise side by side with and in opposition to political power. It thus becomes the basis of all those activities that are free from violent interference on the part of the state. It is the soil in which the seeds of freedom are nurtured and in which the autonomy of the individual and ultimately all intellectual and material progress are rooted.”

StatesPoliticalIndividualForceSidesProgressMaterialsActivityLimitsIntellectualBasesPropertySeedsViolentAriseOperationsSoilOppositionSpheresRootedAutonomyInterferencePrivate PropertyPolitical Power
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“Government force is derived from the sum of the physical force each citizen could exert which by one citizen himself would be ineffective, but when summed from the force of all the area's citizens indeed composes a power no citizen or group can withstand. That force is then rightly but justly to be used against those who violate the foundation pillars of freedom.”

WarGovernmentWould BeUsedForceGroupsCitizensAreasFoundationPillarsPhysical Force
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“An anti-something movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program they attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not simply reject an evil, however bad it may be.”

PeopleWantMayFightingEvilChanceAttitudeAchieveMovementSucceedNegativeProgramPassionateRejectsDisplayNegative Attitude
Book:Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, The
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“You know that the population is of this planet is now ten times greater than it was in the ages preceding capitalism.; you know that all men today enjoy a higher standard of living than your ancestors did before the age of capitalism. But how do you know that you are the one out of ten who would have lived in the absence of capitalism? The mere fact that you are living today is proof that capitalism has succeeded, whether or not you consider your own life very valuable.”

KnowsMenFactsAgeTodayEnjoyGreaterPlanetsHigherTenStandardsCapitalismMerePopulationValuableProofAbsenceDo You KnowAncestorStandards Of LivingHigher Standards
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“As society is only possible if everyone, while living his own life, at the same time helps others to live; if every individual is simultaneously means and end; if each individual's well-being is simultaneously the condition necessary to the well-being of others, it is evident that the contrast between I and thou, means and end, automatically is overcome.”

IfsWellsMeanEndsHelpingIndividualConditionsOvercomingHelping OthersWell BeingContrastEvident
Book:Socialism - An Economic and Sociological Analysis: The Economist
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“The goal of liberalism is the peaceful cooperation of all men. It aims at peace among nations too. When there is private ownership of the means of production everywhere and when laws, the tribunals and the administration treat foreigners and citizens on equal terms, it is of little importance where a country's frontiers are drawn... War no longer pays; there is no motive for aggression... All nations can coexist peacefully.”

MenMeanLittlesWarCountryLawNationsGoalTermPayCitizensEqualTreatsImportanceAimProductionsPeacefulAdministrationMotiveLiberalismCooperationAggressionOwnershipFrontiersForeignersCoexistTribunals
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“Monetary calculation is not the calculation, and certainly not the measurement, of value. Its basis is the comparison of the more important and the less important. It is an ordering according to rank, an act of grading (Cuhel), and not an act of measuring. It was a mistake to search for a measure of the value of goods. In the last analysis, economic calculation does not rest on the measurement of values, but on their arrangement in an order of rank.”

DoeImportantLastsValuesOrderMistakeEconomicBasesAnalysisComparisonGoodsArrangementsMeasurementCalculationsMonetaryMeasuring
Book:Epistemological Problems of Economics
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“A famous, very often quoted phrase says: "That government is best, which governs least." I do not believe this to be a correct description of of the functions of a good government. Government ought to do all the things for which it is needed and for which it is established. Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against the violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the country against foreign enemies. These are the functions of government within a free system, within the system of the market economy.”

ShouldBelieveCountryGovernmentIndividualEnemyEconomyOughtNeededProtectFunctionViolentPhrasesDescriptionGangstersMarket Economy
Book:Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow
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