The mere fact that you are living today is proof that capitalism has succeeded, whether or not you consider your own life very valuable.
Ludwig Von Mises
Ludwig Von Mises (1881-1973) was the 20th century's foremost economist. He was the author of Human Action, Socialism, and a dozen other works.
The Anti-Capitalist Mentality: “Anticommunism” versus Capitalism (Part 5 of 5)
What these self-styled “anticommunist liberals” are fighting against is not communism as such, but a communist system in which they themselves are not at the helm.
The Anti-Capitalist Mentality: The Noneconomic Objections to Capitalism (Part 4 of 5)
Changes in human conditions are brought about by the pioneering of the most clever and most energetic men. They take the lead and the rest of mankind follows them little by little. The innovation is first a luxury of only a few people, until by degrees it comes into the reach of the many.
The Anti-Capitalist Mentality: Literature Under Capitalism (Part 3 of 5)
The tycoon of the book market is the author of fiction for the masses.
The Anti-Capitalist Mentality: The Failure To Comprehend The Nature of Capitalism (Part 2 of 5)
The riches of the rich are not the cause of the poverty of anybody. The process that makes some people rich is, on the contrary, the corollary of the process that improves many peoples’ want satisfaction.
The Anti-Capitalist Mentality: Why Do People Loathe Capitalism? (Part 1 of 5)
On the the social characteristics of capitalism and the psychological causes of Its vilification.
The Economics of Socialism (Part 5)
He who expects a rational economic system from socialism will be forced to re-examine his views.
The Economics of Socialism (Part 4)
The exclusion of free initiative and individual responsibility, on which the successes of private enterprise depend, constitutes the most serious menace to socialist economic organization.
The Economics of Socialism, Part 3
Is there no way in which some kind of economic calculation might be tied up with a socialist system?
The Economics of Socialism, Part 2
Socialism is the abolition of rational economy. There is only groping in the dark.
The Economics of Socialism, Part 1
In the cloud-cuckoo lands of socialist fancy, roast pigeons will fly into the mouths of the comrades,with no realistic explanation of how this miracle is to take place.
The Myth of the Failure of Capitalism
The nearly universal opinion expressed these days is that the economic crisis of recent years marks the end of capitalism. Capitalism allegedly has failed, has proven itself incapable of solving economic problems, and so mankind has no alternative, if it is to survive, than to make the transition to a planned economy, to socialism.
Laissez Faire vs. Interventionism
In eighteenth-century France the saying laissez faire, laissez passer was the formula into which some of the champions of the cause of liberty compressed their program. Their aim was the establishment of the unhampered market society. In order to attain this end they...
Liberty & Property
The distinctive principle of Western social philosophy is individualism.
The Central Role of Saving and Capital Goods
As the popular philosophy of the common man sees it, human wealth and welfare are the products of the cooperation of two primordial factors: nature and human labor. All the things that enable man to live and to enjoy life are supplied either by nature or by work or by...
Planned Chaos: The Alleged Inevitability of Socialism (Part 11 of 11)
Many people believe that the coming of totalitarianism is inevitable. The "wave of the future," they say, carries mankind inexorably toward a system under which all human affairs are managed by omnipotent dictators. It is useless to fight against the unfathomable...
Planned Chaos: The Teachings of Soviet Experience (Part 10 of 11)
Many people all over the world assert that the Soviet "experiment" has supplied conclusive evidence in favor of socialism and disproved all, or at least most, of the objections raised against it. The facts, they say, speak for themselves. It is no longer permissible...
Planned Chaos: Nazism (Part 9 of 11)
The philosophy of the Nazis, the German National Socialist Labor Party, is the purest and most consistent manifestation of the anticapitalistic and socialistic spirit of our age. Its essential ideas are not German or "Aryan" in origin, nor are they peculiar to...
Planned Chaos: Fascism (Part 8 of 11)
When the war broke out in 1914, the Italian socialist party was divided as to the policy to be adopted. One group clung to the rigid principles of Marxism. This war, they maintained, is a war of the capitalists. It is not seemly for the proletarians to side with...
Planned Chaos: The Liberation of the Demons (Part 7 of 11)
The history of mankind is the history of ideas. For it is ideas, theories, and doctrines that guide human action, determine the ultimate ends men aim at and the choice of the means employed for the attainment of these ends. The sensational events which stir the...
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