110+ Ludwig von Mises Quotes On Socialism, Free Market Analysis And Peace

Ludwig von Mises was an Austrian economist and social philosopher who developed a form of economic theory known as the Austrian School of economics. He is best known for his work on monetary theory and his critique of socialism. He argued that government intervention and regulation of the economy was both unnecessary and harmful to economic growth. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Ludwig von Mises on socialism, free market analysis, peace.

Top 10 Ludwig Von Mises Quotes

1. Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them.
2. The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.
3. [E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics
4. The real bosses, in the capitalist system of market economy, are the consumers.
5. Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.
6. The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest.
7. If one rejects laissez faire on account of mans fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.
8. Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.
9. Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking.
10. Capitalism needs neither propaganda nor apostles. Its achievements speak for themselves. Capitalism delivers the goods.

Ludwig Von Mises Short Quotes

• He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits.
• The market is a democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote.
• Every socialist is a disguised dictator.
• Sovereignty must not be used for inflicting harm on anyone, whether citizen or foreigner.
• The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.
• Depression is the aftermath of credit expansion.
• Under capitalism everybody is the architect of his own fortune.
• The masses, in their capacity as consumers, ultimately determine everybody's revenues and wealth.
• There is no remedy for the inefficiency of public management.
• At eighty-eight how do you feel when getting up in the morning?...Amazed!

Ludwig von Mises Quotes About Socialism

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

The issue is always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution. — Ludwig von Mises

Laissez faire does not mean: let soulless mechanical forces operate. It means: let individuals choose how they want to cooperate in the social division of labor and let them determine what the entrepreneurs should produce. — Ludwig von Mises

It is vain to fight totalitarianism by adopting totalitarian methods. Freedom can only be won by men unconditionally committed to the principles of freedom. The first requisite for a better social order is the return to unrestricted freedom of thought and speech. — Ludwig von Mises

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

It is certain that many intellectuals envy the higher income of prosperous businessmen and that these feelings drive them toward socialism. They believe that the authorities of a socialist commonwealth would pay them higher salaries than those that they earn under capitalism. — Ludwig von Mises

The flowering of human society depends on two factors: the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound social and economic theories, and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority. — Ludwig von Mises

The genuine history of mankind is the history of ideas. It is ideas that distinguish man from all other beings. Ideas engender social institutions, political changes, technologi- cal methods of production, and all that is called economic conditions. — Ludwig von Mises

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

Every step toward the elimination of profit is progress on the way toward social disintegration. — Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises Quotes About Peace

If some peoples pretend that history or geography gives them the right to subjugate other races, nations, or peoples, there can be no peace. — Ludwig von Mises

Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom. — Ludwig von Mises

Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things. — Ludwig von Mises

The aim of all struggles for liberty is to keep in bounds the armed defenders of peace, the governors and their constables. The political concept of the individual's freedom means: freedom from arbitrary action on the part of the police power. — Ludwig von Mises

[T]he essence of so-called war prosperity: it enriches some by what it takes from others. It is not rising wealth but a shifting of wealth and income. — Ludwig von Mises

Whoever wants peace among nations must seek to limit the state and its influence most strictly. — Ludwig von Mises

The main achievement of economics is that it has provided a theory of peaceful human cooperation. This is why the harbingers of violent conflict have branded it as a dismal science and why this age of wars, civil wars, and destruction has no use for it. — Ludwig von Mises

Continued adherence to a policy of compulsory education is utterly incompatible with efforts to establish lasting peace. — Ludwig von Mises

Every extension of the functions and power of the State beyond its primary duty of maintaining peace and justice should be scrutinized with jealous vigilance. — Ludwig von Mises

The attainment of the economic aims of man presupposes peace. — Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises Quotes About Nations

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

To the masses, the catchwords of Socialism sound so enticing... so they will continue to work for Socialism, helping thereby to bring about the inevitable decline of the civilization which the nations of the West have taken thousands of years to build up. — Ludwig von Mises

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. — Ludwig von Mises

Wars of aggression are popular nowadays with those nations convinced that only victory and conquest could improve their material well-being. — Ludwig von Mises

The illusiveness of this concept of national income is to be seen in its dependence on changes in the purchasing power of the monetary unit. The more inflation progresses, the higher rises the national income. — Ludwig von Mises

Lenin's ideal was to build a nation's production effort according to the model of the post office. — Ludwig von Mises

Every collectivist assumes a different source for the collective will, according to his own political, religious and national convictions. — Ludwig von Mises

The unpopularity of economics is the result of its analysis of the effects of privileges. It is impossible to invalidate the economists demonstration that all privileges hurt the interests of the rest of the nation or at least a great part of it. — Ludwig von Mises

A nation, therefore, has no right to say to a province: You belong to me, I want to take you. A province consists of its inhabitants. If anybody has a right to be heard in this case it is these inhabitants. Boundary disputes should be settled by plebiscite. — Ludwig von Mises

What is lacking to the underdeveloped nations is not knowledge, but capital. — Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises Quotes About Business

Profits are the driving force of the market economy. The greater the profits, the better the needs of the consumers are supplied... He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits. — Ludwig von Mises

In a game there are winners and losers. But a business deal is always advantageous for both parties. If both the buyer and the seller were not to consider the transaction as the most advantageous action they could choose under the prevailing conditions, they would not enter into the deal. — Ludwig von Mises

Big business always serve - directly or indirectly - the masses. — Ludwig von Mises

The boom is called good business, prosperity, and upswing. Its unavoidable aftermath, the readjustment of conditions to the real data of the market, is called crisis, slump, bad business, depression. — Ludwig von Mises

The market economy as such does not respect political frontiers. Its field is the world. — Ludwig von Mises

What makes small business develop into big business is not spending, but saving and capital accumulation. — Ludwig von Mises

The most successful businessmen were often uneducated when measured by the scholastic standards of the teaching profession. But they were equal to their social function of adjusting production to the most urgent demand. Because of these merits the consumers chose them for business leadership. — Ludwig von Mises

Big business depends entirely on the patronage of those who buy its products: the biggest enterprises loses its power and its influence when it loses its customers. — Ludwig von Mises

Economically considered, war and revolution are always bad business. — Ludwig von Mises

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. — Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises Quotes About Brings

If you increase the quantity of money, you bring about the lowering of the purchasing power of the monetary unit. — Ludwig von Mises

A higher standard of living also brings about a higher standard of culture and civilization. — Ludwig von Mises

Credit expansion can bring about a temporary boom. But such a fictitious prosperity must end in a general depression of trade, a slump. — Ludwig von Mises

There is no kind of freedom and liberty other than the kind which the market economy brings about. — Ludwig von Mises

War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings...but no one has for those reasons yet sought to celebrate earthquakes and cholera as stimulators of the productive forces in the general interest. — Ludwig von Mises

War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings. — Ludwig von Mises

Thoughts and ideas are not phantoms. They are real things. Although intangible and immaterial, they are factors in bringing about changes in the realm of tangible and material things. — Ludwig von Mises

One has to recognize that science is not metaphysics, and certainly not mysticism; it can never bring us the illumination and the satisfaction experienced by one enraptured in ecstasy. Science is sobriety and clarity of conception, not intoxicated vision. — Ludwig von Mises

Marx and Engels openly declared that the progressive income tax and the death tax are 'economically untenable' and that they advocated them only because 'they necessitate further inroads' upon the capitalist system and are 'unavoidable' as a means of bringing about socialism. — Ludwig von Mises

Thus, the isolated interference with one or a few prices of consumer goods always bring about effects-and this is important to realize-which are even less satisfactory than the conditions that prevailed before. — Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises Famous Quotes And Sayings

To the grumbler who complains about the unfairness of the market system only one piece of advice can be given: If you want to acquire wealth, then try to satisfy the public by offering them something that is cheaper or which they like better....Equality under the law gives you the power to challenge every millionaire. — Ludwig von Mises

The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate. They misuse their power for the oppression of those whom they were expected to defend against oppression. The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty. — Ludwig von Mises

Economic progress is the work of the savers, who accumulate capital, and of the entrepreneurs, who turn capital to new uses. — Ludwig von Mises

The entrepreneur profits to the extent he has succeeded in serving the consumers better than other people have done. — Ludwig von Mises

Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy. — Ludwig von Mises

The only source from which an entrepreneurs profits stem is his ability to anticipate better than other people the future demand of the consumers. — Ludwig von Mises

The standard of living of the common man is higher in those countries which have the greatest number of wealthy entrepreneurs. — Ludwig von Mises

Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop. — Ludwig von Mises

Capitalism and socialism are two distinct patterns of social organization. Private control of the means of production and public control are contradictory notions and not merely contrary notions. There is no such thing as a mixed economy, a system that would stand midway between capitalism and socialism. — Ludwig von Mises

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

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

The prerequisite for more economic equality in the world is industrialization. And this is possible only through increased capital investment, increased capital accumulation. — Ludwig von Mises

Capitalism means free enterprise, sovereignty of the consumers in economic matters, and sovereignty of the voters in political matters. Socialism means full government control of every sphere of the individuals life and the unrestricted supremacy of the government in its capacity as central board of production management. — Ludwig von Mises

Capitalism gave the world what it needed, a higher standard of living for a steadily increasing number of people. — Ludwig von Mises

The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom. — Ludwig von Mises

What mankind needs today is liberation from the rule of nonsensical slogans and a return to sound reasoning. — Ludwig von Mises

If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury, democracy is done for. — Ludwig von Mises

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

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

All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts. — Ludwig von Mises

Progressive taxation of income and profits means that precisely those parts of the income which people would have saved and invested are taxed away — Ludwig von Mises

The philosophy underlying the system of progressive taxation is that the income and wealth of the well-to-do classes can be freely tapped. What the advocates of these tax rates fail to realize is that the greater part of the incomes taxed away would not have been consumed but saved and invested. — Ludwig von Mises

The program of liberalism if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production. — Ludwig von Mises

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. — Ludwig von Mises

The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster. — Ludwig von Mises

Only stilted pedants can conceive the idea that there are absolute norms to tell what is beautiful and what is not. They try to derive from the works of the past a code of rules with which, as they fancy, the writers and artists of the future should comply. But the genius does not cooperate with the pundit. — Ludwig von Mises

War is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror. Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things. Only economic action has created the wealth around us; labor, not the profession of arms, brings happiness. Peace builds, war destroys. — Ludwig von Mises

The characteristic mark of economic history under capitalism is unceasing economic progress, a steady increase in the quantity of capital goods available, and a continuous trend toward an improvement in the general standard of living. — Ludwig von Mises

Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities. — Ludwig von Mises

Public works are not accomplished by the miraculous power of a magic wand. They are paid for by funds taken away from the citizens. — Ludwig von Mises

The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war. The wars of our age are not at variance with popular economic doctrines; they are, on the contrary, the inescapable result of a consistent application of these doctrines. — Ludwig von Mises

State interference in economic life, which calls itself economic policy, has done nothing but destroy economic life. Prohibitions and regulations have by their general obstructive tendency fostered the growth of the spirit of wastefulness. — Ludwig von Mises

What is called economic progress is the joint effect of the activities of the three progressive groups-or classes-of the savers, the scientist-inventors, and the entrepreneurs, operating in a market economy as far as it is not sabotaged by the endeavors of the nonprogressive majority of the routinists and the public policies supported by them. — Ludwig von Mises

The common man is the sovereign consumer whose buying or abstention from buying ultimately determines what should be produced and in what quantity and quality. — Ludwig von Mises

It is inherent in the nature of the capitalistic economy that, in the final analysis, the employment of the factors of production is aimed only toward serving the wishes of consumers. — Ludwig von Mises

What is a loophole? If the law does not punish a definite action or does not tax a definite thing, this is not a loophole. It is simply the law. — Ludwig von Mises

Only to bureaucrats can the idea occur that establishing new offices, promulgating new decrees, and increasing the number of government employees alone can be described as positive and beneficial measures. — Ludwig von Mises

There is simply no other choice than this: either to abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way. — Ludwig von Mises

The struggle for freedom is not the struggle of the many against the few, but of minorities, sometimes of a minority of but one man gainst the majority. — Ludwig von Mises

The whole of mankind's progress has had to be achieved against the resistance and opposition of the state and its power of coercion. — Ludwig von Mises

Human civilization is not something achieved against nature; it is rather the outcome of the working of the innate qualities of man. — Ludwig von Mises

What pays under capitalism is satisfying the common man, the customer. The more people you satisfy, the better for you. — Ludwig von Mises

Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life that can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. — Ludwig von Mises

The development of capitalism consists in everyone having the right to serve the consumer better or more cheaply. — Ludwig von Mises

It is impossible to describe any human action if one does not refer to the meaning the actor sees in the stimulus as well as in the end his response is aiming at. — Ludwig von Mises

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. — Ludwig von Mises

We owe the origin and development of human society and, consequently, of culture and civilization, to the fact that work performed under the division of labor is more productive than when performed in isolation. — Ludwig von Mises

The meaning of economic freedom is this: that the individual is in a position to choose the way in which he wants to integrate himself into the totality of society. — Ludwig von Mises

To assign to everybody his proper place in society is the task of the consumers. Their buying and abstention from buying is instrumental in determining each individual's social position. — Ludwig von Mises

The concept of a 'just' or 'fair' price is devoid of any scientific meaning; it is a disguise for wishes, a striving for a state of affairs different from reality. — Ludwig von Mises

Government spending cannot create additional jobs. If the government provides the funds required by taxing the citizens or by borrowing from the public, it abolishes on the one hand as many jobs as it creates on the other. — Ludwig von Mises

If people do not consume their whole incomes, the non-consumed surplus can be invested, it increases the amount of capital goods available and thereby makes it possible to embark upon projects which could not be executed before. — Ludwig von Mises

The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties were eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise. — Ludwig von Mises

The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion. — Ludwig von Mises

In the capitalist society there is a place and bread for all. Its ability to expand provides sustenance for every worker. Permanent unemployment is not a feature of free capitalism. — Ludwig von Mises

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. — Ludwig von Mises

All people, however fanatical they may be in their zeal to disparage and to fight capitalism, implicitly pay homage to it by passionately clamoring for the products it turns out — Ludwig von Mises

Professor von Mises has a splendid analytical mind and an admirable passion for liberty; but as a student of human nature he is worse than null and as a debater he is of Hyde Park standard. — Ludwig von Mises

The gold standard makes the money's purchasing power independent of the changing, ambitions and doctrines of political parties and pressure groups. This is not a defect of the gold standard; it is its main excellence. — Ludwig von Mises

Liberalism and capitalism address themselves to the cool, well-balanced mind. They proceed by strict logic, eliminating any appeal to the emotions. Socialism, on the contrary, works on the emotions, tries to violate logical considerations by rousing a sense of personal interest and to stifle the voice of reason by awakening primitive instincts. — Ludwig von Mises

All attempts to coerce the living will of human beings into the service of something they do not want must fail — Ludwig von Mises

Economic theory has demonstrated in an irrefutable way that a prosperity created by an expansionist monetary and credit policy is illusory and must end in a slump, an economic crisis. — Ludwig von Mises

The characteristic feature of capitalism that distinguishes it from pre-capitalist methods of production was its new principle of marketing. Capitalism is not simply mass production, but mass production to satisfy the needs of the masses. — Ludwig von Mises

If the government objects to monopoly prices for new inventions, it should stop granting patents. — Ludwig von Mises

Life Lessons by Ludwig von Mises

1. Ludwig von Mises believed in the power of the free market and the importance of economic freedom, teaching us to value the autonomy of individuals and the power of choice.
2. He also argued for the importance of sound money and fiscal responsibility, teaching us to be mindful of how our economic decisions can affect the future.
3. Finally, he encouraged us to think critically and to be aware of the unintended consequences of government intervention, teaching us to be wary of the potential for government overreach.