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Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises Quotes

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Famous Ludwig von Mises Quotes

“It is not the fault of the entrepreneurs that the consumers,the people, the common man,prefer liquor to Bibles and detective stories to serious books, and that governments prefer guns to butter. The entrepreneur does not make greater profits in selling bad things than in selling good things. His profits are the greater the better he succeeds in providing the consumers with those things they ask for most intensely.”

PeopleMenDoeBookStoriesGovernmentAsksCommonGreaterSeriousSucceedGunEntrepreneurGood ThingsFaultsProfitSellingConsumersBad ThingsProvidingDetectivesLiquorCommon ManDetective Stories
Book:Human action: a treatise on economics
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“The characteristic feature of militarism is not the fact that a nation has a powerful army or navy. It is the paramount role assigned to the army within the political structure. Even in peacetime the army is supreme; it is the predominant factor in political life. The subjects must obey the government as soldiers must obey their superiors. Within a militarist community there is no freedom; there are only obedience and discipline.”

FactsGovernmentPoliticalNationsCommunityPowerfulRolesSubjectsDisciplineArmyStructureSoldierSupremeSuperiorsFactorsObedienceFeaturesCharacteristicsNavyParamountMilitarismPolitical Life
Book:Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War
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“As the prosperity of the nation and the height of wage rates depend on a continual increase in the capital invested in its plants, mines and farms, it is one of the foremost tasks of good government to remove all obstacles that hinder the accumulation and investment of new capital.”

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Book:Planning for freedom, and sixteen other essays and addresses
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“It is completely in accord with the etatist thinking prevalent everywhere today to consider a theory to be finally disposed of merely because the authorities who control appointments to academic positions, want to know nothing of it, and to see the criterion of truth in the approval of a government office.”

ThinkingKnowsWantGovernmentTodayFreedomLibertyPositionTheoryOfficeAuthorityAcademicApprovalCriteriaAccordAppointments
Book:Epistemological Problems of Economics
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“There is no use in deceiving ourselves. American public opinion rejects the market economy, the capitalistic free enterprise system that provided the nation with the highest standard of living ever attained. Full government control of all activities of the individual is virtually the goal of both national parties.”

UseGovernmentIndividualNationsGoalPartyOpinionEconomyActivityHighestStandardsLibertarianEnterpriseRejectsDeceivingPublic OpinionStandards Of LivingFree EnterpriseMarket EconomyDeceiving Ourselves
Book:Economic freedom and interventionism: an anthology of articles and essays
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“History does not provide any example of capital accumulation brought about by a government. As far as governments invested in the construction of roads, railroads, and other useful public works, the capital needed was provided by the savings of individual citizens and borrowed by the government.”

DoeGovernmentIndividualExampleNeededCitizensSavingConstructionSavingsAccumulationBorrowedRailroads
Book:Human action: a treatise on economics
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“True, governments can reduce the rate of interest in the short run. They can issue additional paper money. They can open the way to credit expansion by the banks. They can thus create an artificial boom and the appearance of prosperity. But such a boom is bound to collapse soon or late and to bring about a depression.”

WayGovernmentRunningInterestIssuesPaperLateRateBoundsProsperityAppearanceCreditArtificialCollapseExpansionPaper Money
Book:Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War
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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.”

WayCountryWholeGovernmentActionOrderStandardsGoldCourtPrisonOppressionCustomsCollapseInflationPolicemenCoercionGrimExecutionersGold Standard
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“Governments, political parties, pressure groups, and the bureaucrats of the educational hierarchy think they can avoid the inevitable consequences of unsuitable measures by boycotting and silencing the independent economists. But truth persists and works, even if nobody is left to utter it.”

IfsThinkingGovernmentPoliticalLeftPartyGroupsConsequencePressureIndependentEducationalInevitablePersistEconomistPolitical PartiesHierarchyBureaucratsSilencingPressure Groups
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“If the practice persists of covering government deficits with the issue of notes, then the day will come without fail, sooner or later, when the monetary systems of those nations pursuing this course will break down completely. The purchasing power of the monetary unit will decline more and more, until finally it disappears completely.”

IfsGovernmentCoursesNationsBreakPracticeIssuesFailingNotesDisappearDeclineSooner Or LaterPersistUnitsBreaking DownDeficitCoveringMonetaryPurchasingMonetary SystemPurchasing PowerDisappear Completely
Book:On the Manipulation of Money and Credit
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“The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by governments.”

MenStatesGovernmentEvilForceWorstMankindDangerousCivilizationWorshipEndureMenaceIncompetent
Book:Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War
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“Credit expansion is the governments' foremost tool in their struggle against the market economy. In their hands it is the magic wand designed to conjure away the scarcity of capital goods, to lower the rate of interest or to abolish it altogether, to finance lavish government spending, to expropriate the capitalists, to contrive everlasting booms, and to make everybody prosperous.”

HandsGovernmentInterestStruggleEconomyMagicToolsRateCreditSpendingFinanceGoodsCapitalistExpansionEverlastingProsperousAbolishScarcityWandsMarket EconomyGovernment SpendingMagic Wands
Book:Human action: a treatise on economics
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“There is, in fact, only one solution: the state, the government, the laws must not in any way concern themselves with schooling or education. Public funds must not be used for such purposes. The rearing and instruction of youth must be left entirely to parents and to private associations and institutions”

WayStatesFactsGovernmentLawUsedPurposeLeftParentYouthSolutionsConcernInstitutionsFundAssociationInstructionSchooling
Book:The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism
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“It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.”

MenMeanImportantGovernmentActionLastsRememberEssentialsAskingPrisonThreatKillingSoldierViolentEmploymentFeaturesEnforcementResortsCompulsionPolicemenInterferenceDecreeHangmanPrison Guards
Book:Economic freedom and interventionism: an anthology of articles and essays
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“The so-called liberals of today have the very popular idea that freedom of speech, of thought, of the press, freedom of religion, freedom from imprisonment without trial-that all these freedoms can be preserved in the absence of what is called economic freedom. They do not realize that, in a system where there is no market, where the government directs everything, all those other freedoms are illusory, even if they are made into laws and written up in constitutions.”

IfsMadeIdeasGovernmentTodayLawRealizingFreedomWrittenEconomicSpeechConstitutionPressesAbsenceTrialsFreedom Of SpeechImprisonmentFreedom Of The PressIllusoryFreedom Of ReligionEconomic FreedomVery Popular
Book:Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow
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“Government and state can never be perfect because they owe their raison d'être to the imperfection of man and can attain their end, the elimination of man's innate impulse to violence, only by recourse to violence, the very thing they are called upon to prevent.”

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Book:The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method
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“Every man aims at avoiding what causes him pain; the activities of government ultimately consist in the infliction of pain. All great achievements of mankind were the product of a spontaneous effort on the part of individuals; government substitutes coercion for voluntary action.”

MenGovernmentActionPainSufferingIndividualCausesEffortMankindProductsActivityAchievementAimEvery ManSubstitutesSpontaneousAvoidingCoercionGreat AchievementInfliction
Book:The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method
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“These people talk of a "middle-of-the-road" policy. What they do not see is that the isolated interference, which means the interference with only one small part of the economic system, brings about a situation which the government itself — and the people who are asking for government interference — find worse than the conditions they wish to abolish: the people who are asking for rent control are very angry when they discover there is a shortage of apartments and a shortage of housing.”

PeopleMeanGovernmentWishSituationEconomicMiddleConditionsPolicyAskingAngryIsolatedApartmentHousingInterferenceAbolishShortageEconomic SystemsSmall PartsMiddle Of The RoadRent Control
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau.”

MenWorldWantKindGovernmentLibertyPlansPromiseBlessingOfficeGardenDemocratImprovementEvery ManSocialismResistancePostsRevolutionaryChampionRoutineDictatorshipEdenSubordinatesClerksOmnipotentGarden Of EdenObservancePost Office
Book:Bureaucracy: The Economist
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“There is but one means available to improve the material conditions of mankind: to accelerate the growth of capital accumulated as against the growth in population. The greater the amount of capital invested per head of the worker, the more and better goods can be produced and consumed. This is what capitalism, the much abused profit system, has brought about and brings about daily anew. Yet, most present-day governments and political parties are eager to destroy this system.”

MeanGovernmentPoliticalGrowthPartyGreaterConditionsMankindMaterialsAmountCapitalismWorkersPopulationProfitAvailableGoodsPolitical PartiesConsumedPresent DayAccelerate
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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