Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises / 1881–1973 / Lemberg, Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Lviv, Ukraine) / Economist, Political Philosopher
Action
Economics, as a branch of the more general theory of human action, deals with all human action, i.e., with man’s purposive aiming at the attainment of ends chosen, whatever these ends may be.
Source: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Yale University Press, 1949).
Action is an attempt to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory one. We call such a willfully induced alteration an exchange.
Source: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Yale University Press, 1949).
Most actions do not aim at anybody’s defeat or loss. They aim at an improvement in conditions.
Source: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Yale University Press, 1949).
Man’s striving after an improvement of the conditions of his existence impels him to action. Action requires planning and the decision which of various plans is the most advantageous.
Source: The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method (D. Van Nostrand Company, 1962).
The uncertainty of the future is already implied in the very notion of action. That man acts and that the future is uncertain are by no means two independent matters. They are only two different modes of establishing one thing.
Source: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Yale University Press, 1949).
Bureaucracy
A bureaucrat differs from a nonbureaucrat precisely because he is working in a field in which it is impossible to appraise the result of a man’s effort in terms of money.
Source: Bureaucracy (Arlington House, 1969).
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.
Source: Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (Yale University Press, 1944).
The trend toward bureaucratic rigidity is not inherent in the evolution of business. It is an outcome of government meddling with business.
Source: Bureaucracy (Arlington House, 1969).
No private enterprise will ever fall prey to bureaucratic methods of management if it is operated with the sole aim of making profit.
Source: Bureaucracy (Arlington House, 1969).
Capitalism
What the workers must learn is that the only reason why wage rates are higher in the United States is that the per head quota of capital invested is higher.
Source: Planning for Freedom, and Other Essays and Addresses (Libertarian Press, 1952).
There are no means by which the general standard of living can be raised other than by accelerating the increase of capital as compared with population.
Source: Planning for Freedom, and Other Essays and Addresses (Libertarian Press, 1952).
Those politicians, professors and union bosses who curse big business are fighting for a lower standard of living.
Source: Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (Yale University Press, 1957).
Under capitalism, material success depends on the appreciation of a man’s achievements on the part of the sovereign consumers. In this regard there is no difference between the services rendered by a manufacturer and those rendered by a producer, an actor or a playwright.
Source: The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (D. Van Nostrand Company, 1956).
The greater the fund of means of subsistence in a community, the lower the rate of interest.
Source: The Theory of Money and Credit (original German edition, 1912).
Danger
The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.
Source: Economic Freedom and Interventionism: An Anthology of Articles and Essays (Foundation for Economic Education, 1990).
Equality
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
Source: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Yale University Press, 1949).
Government Intervention
Credit expansion can bring about a temporary boom. But such a fictitious prosperity must end in a general depression of trade, a slump.
Source: Planned Chaos (Foundation for Economic Education, 1972).
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 a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.
Source: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Yale University Press, 1949).
Inflation and credit expansion, the preferred methods of present day government openhandedness, do not add anything to the amount of resources available. They make some people more prosperous, but only to the extent that they make others poorer.
Source: Bureaucracy (Arlington House, 1969).
Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead toward totalitarianism.
Source: The Theory of Money and Credit (original German edition, 1912).
The essence of the interventionist policy is to take from one group to give to another. It is confiscation and distribution.
Source: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Yale University Press, 1949).
Socialism and interventionism. Both have in common the goal of subordinating the individual unconditionally to the state.
Source: Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (Yale University Press, 1944).
It is the typical policy of après nous le déluge. Lord Keynes, the champion of this policy, says: “In the long run we are all dead.” But unfortunately nearly all of us outlive the short run. We are destined to spend decades paying for the easy money orgy of a few years.
Source: Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (Yale University Press, 1944).
Ideas
Only ideas can overcome ideas.
Source: Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (original German edition, 1922).
The ideas that change the intellectual climate of a given environment are those unheard of before. For these new ideas there is no other explanation than that there was a man from whose mind they originated.
Source: The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method (D. Van Nostrand Company, 1962).
In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails.
Source: Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition (original German edition, 1927).
Ideas live longer than walls and other material artifacts.
Source: Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (Yale University Press, 1957).
No one can escape the influence of a prevailing ideology.
Source: Epistemological Problems of Economics (original German edition, 1933).
Liberty
Liberty is always freedom from the government.
Source: “Liberty and Property,” lecture, Princeton University, October 15, 1958.
Progress
Progress of any kind is always at variance with the old and established ideas and therefore with the codes inspired by them. Every step of progress is a change involving heavy risks.
Source: Bureaucracy (Arlington House, 1969).
Value
The buyers do not pay for the toil and trouble the worker took nor for the length of time he spent in working. They pay for the products.
Source: Planning for Freedom, and Other Essays and Addresses (Libertarian Press, 1952).