Ludwig von Mises ( 10 of 64 )
For the sake of domestic peace, liberalism aims at democratic government. Democracy is therefore not a revolutionary institution. On the read more
For the sake of domestic peace, liberalism aims at democratic government. Democracy is therefore not a revolutionary institution. On the contrary it is the very means of preventing revolution and civil wars. It provides a method for the peaceful adjustment of government to the will of the majority.
Science does not give us absolute and final certainty. It only gives us assurance within the limits of our mental read more
Science does not give us absolute and final certainty. It only gives us assurance within the limits of our mental abilities and the prevailing state of scientific thought.
What matters is not the allocation of portions out of a fund presented to man by nature. The problem is read more
What matters is not the allocation of portions out of a fund presented to man by nature. The problem is rather to further those social institutions which enable people to continue and to enlarge the production of all those things which they need.
The avowed aim of all utopian movements is to put an end to history and to establish a final and read more
The avowed aim of all utopian movements is to put an end to history and to establish a final and permanent calm.
The prevailing legal and moral views of a time are held not only by those whom they benefit but by read more
The prevailing legal and moral views of a time are held not only by those whom they benefit but by those, too, who appear to suffer from them. Their domination is expressed in that fact- that the people from whom they claim sacrifice accept them.
To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement read more
To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement is possible, we need only refer to a passage in Engel's most famous book. Here, in 1878, Engels apodictically announced that military weapons are "now so perfected that no further progress of any revolutionizing influence is any longer possible." Henceforth "all further [technological] progress is by and large indifferent for land warfare. The age of evolution is in this regard essentially closed." This complacent conclusion shows in what the achievement of the innovator consists: he accomplishes what other people believe to be unthinkable and unfeasible.
...it is solely bigness in business which makes it possible to supply the masses with all those products the present-day read more
...it is solely bigness in business which makes it possible to supply the masses with all those products the present-day American common man does not want to do without. Luxury goods for the few can be produced in small shops. Luxury goods for the many require big business.
The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and read more
The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state. The history of the West, from the age of the Greek polis down to the present-day resistance to socialism, is essentially the history of the fight for liberty against the encroachments of the officeholders.
The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all read more
The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty.
Reason's biological function is to preserve and promote life and to postpone its extinction as long as possible. Thinking and read more
Reason's biological function is to preserve and promote life and to postpone its extinction as long as possible. Thinking and acting are not contrary to nature; they are, rather, the foremost features of man's nature. The most appropriate description of man as differentiated from nonhuman beings is: a being purposively struggling against the forces adverse to his life.
