Ludwig von Mises Quotes

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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.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Men, Garden, Blessing

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Bureaucracy: The Economist”, p.115, VM eBooks

  212 Copy quote

• 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.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Men, Civilization, Evil

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

  60 Copy quote

• Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Liberty, Agree, Ifs

  51 Copy quote

• The advocates of public control cannot do without inflation. They need it in order to finance their policy of reckless spending and of lavishly subsidizing and bribing the voters.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Order, Needs, Voters

  Ludwig von Mises (2013). “The Theory of Money and Credit”, p.436, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  31 Copy quote

• There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Mean, Liberty, Finals

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

  47 Copy quote

• The most important thing to remember is that inflation is not an act of God, that inflation is not a catastrophe of the elements or a disease that comes like the plague. Inflation is a policy.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Important, Elements, Disease

  Ludwig Von Mises (2006). “Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow”, p.72, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  36 Copy quote

• Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them.

  Ludwig von Mises

  School, Men, Creative

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

  127 Copy quote

• What generates war is the economic philosophy of nationalism: embargoes, trade and foreign exchange controls, monetary devaluation, etc. The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Freedom, Philosophy, War

  20 Copy quote

• Every socialist is a disguised dictator.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Dictator, Socialist

  55 Copy quote

• Government is the only institution that can take a valuable commodity like paper, and make it worthless by applying ink.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, Ink, Paper

  32 Copy quote

• Socialism is not in the least what it pretends to be. It is not the pioneer of a better and finer world, but the spoiler of what thousands of years of civilization have created. It does not build, it destroys. For destruction is the essence of it. It produces nothing, it only consumes what the social order based on private ownership in the means of production has created.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Mean, Order, Years

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Socialism - An Economic and Sociological Analysis: The Economist”, p.414, VM eBooks

  69 Copy quote

• The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Struggle, Public Opinion, Resistance

  Ludwig von Mises (1985). “Theory and History”, p.66, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  29 Copy quote

• Every government intervention [in the marketplace] creates unintended consequences, which lead to calls for further government interventions.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, Unintended Consequences, Marketplace

  30 Copy quote

• Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of man's human existence.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Philosophy, Men, Civilization

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

  22 Copy quote

• Liberty is always freedom from the government.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, Liberty

  38 Copy quote

• 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.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Mean, Men, Prison Guards

  Ludwig Von Mises (1990). “Economic freedom and interventionism: an anthology of articles and essays”

  37 Copy quote
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  The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Peace, War, Government

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

  125 Copy quote

• 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.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Men, Two, Doe

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

  70 Copy quote

• The issue is always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Issues, Government, Liberty

  Ludwig Von Mises (1947). “Planned Chaos”, p.15, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  59 Copy quote

• The main propoganda trick of supporters of the allegedly "progressive" policy of government control is to blame capitalism for all that is unsatisfactory in present-day conditions and to extol the blessings of socialism. They have never attempted to prove their fallacious dogmas, all they did was to call their adversaries names and cast suspicion upon their motives. And, unfortunately, the average citizen cannot see through these stratagems. The liars must be afraid of the truth and are therefore driven to suppress its pronouncement.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Philosophy, Liars, Blessing

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  Country, Order, Government

  11 Copy quote

• 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!

  Ludwig von Mises

  Exercise, Idols, People

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

  28 Copy quote

• What pushes the masses into the camp of socialism is, even more than the illusion that socialism will make them richer, the expectation that it will curb all those who are better than they themselves are.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Envy, Expectations, Socialism

  Ludwig Von Mises (1962). “The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method”

  18 Copy quote

• Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, Liberty, Unemployment

  57 Copy quote

• Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Men, Liberty, Politics

  97 Copy quote

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