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Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis QUOTES

Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis QUOTES

1 " Since its appearance the view that prostitution is a product of capitalism has gained ground enormously. And as, in addition, preachers still complain that the good old morals have decayed, and accuse modern culture of having led to loose living, everyone is convinced that all sexual wrongs represent a symptom of decadence peculiar to our age. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

2 " 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 , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

3 " 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 , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

4 " The average man is both better informed and less corruptible in the decisions he makes as a consumer than as a voter at political elections. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

5 " All rational action is economic. All economic activity is rational action. 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 , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

6 " True, a socialistic society could see that 1000 litres of wine were better than 800 litres. It could decide whether or not 1000 litres of wine were to be preferred to 500 litres of oil. Such a decision would involve no calculation. The will of some man would decide. But the real business of economic administration, the adaptation of means to ends only begins when such a decision is taken. And only economic calculation makes this adaptation possible. Without such assistance, in the bewildering chaos of alternative materials and processes the human mind would be at a complete loss. Whenever we had to decide between different processes or different centres of production, we would be entirely at sea. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

7 " Wherever Europeans or the descendants of European emigrants live, we see Socialism at work to-day; and in Asia it is the banner round which the antagonists of European civilization gather. If the intellectual dominance of Socialism remains unshaken, then in a short time the whole co-operative system of culture which Europe has built up during thousands of years will be shattered. For a socialist order of society is unrealizable. All efforts to realize Socialism lead only to the destruction of society. Factories, mines, and railways will come to a standstill, towns will be deserted. The population of the industrial territories will die out or migrate elsewhere. The farmer will return to the self-sufficiency of the closed, domestic economy. Without private ownership in the means of production there is, in the long run, no production other than a hand-to-mouth production for one's own needs. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

8 " Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

9 " Socialism is the expression of the principle of violence crying from the workers' soul, just as Imperialism is the principle of violence speaking from the soul of the official and the soldier. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

10 " Peace builds, war destroys. Nations are fundamentally peaceful because they recognize the predominant utility of peace. They accept war only in self-defence; wars of aggression they do not desire. It is the princes who want war, because thus they hope to get money, goods, and power. It is the business of the nations to prevent them from achieving their desire by denying them the means necessary for making war. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

11 " It suffices here to say that the planned economy which the advocates of dictatorship wish to set up is precisely as socialistic as the Socialism propagated by the self-styled Social Democrats. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

12 " When we call a capitalist society a consumers' democracy we mean that the power to dispose of the means of production, which belongs to the entrepreneurs and capitalists, can only be acquired by means of the consumers' ballot, held daily in the market-place. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

13 " What makes Bolshevism strong is not the Soviets' artillery and machine-guns but the fact that the whole world receives its ideas sympathetically. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

14 " Adept as he was in the Hegelian dialectic — a system easy of abuse by those who seek to dominate thought by arbitrary flights of fancy and metaphysical verbosity — he was not slow in finding a way out of the dilemma in which socialists found themselves. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

15 " Though the man of action, the politician, may sometimes pay no attention to the results of this examination, the man of thought will never cease to inquire into all things accessible to human intelligence. And in the long run thought must determine action. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

16 " The incomparable success of Marxism is due to the prospect it offers of fulfilling those dream-aspirations and dreams of vengeance which have been so deeply embedded in the human soul from time immemorial. It promises a Paradise on earth, a Land of Hearts' Desire full of happiness and enjoyment, and — sweeter still to the losers in life's game — humiliation of all who are stronger and better than the multitude. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

17 " Liberalism has no admiration to spare for the heroic grandiosity of Marxism's professional revolutionaries, who stake the lives of thousands and destroy values which the labour of decades and centuries has created. Here the economic principle holds good: Liberalism wants success at the smallest price. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

18 " The nationalist, too, affirms Socialism, and objects only to its Internationalism. He wishes to combine Socialism with the ideas of Imperialism and the struggle against foreign nations. He is a national, not an international socialist; but he, also, approves of the essential principles of Socialism. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

19 " The lord of production is the consumer "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

20 " People without rights are always a menace to social order. Their common interest in removing such barriers unites them; they are prepared to resort to violence because by peaceable means they are unable to get what they want. Social peace is attained only when one allows all members of society to participate in democratic institutions. And this means equality of All before the Law. "

― Ludwig von Mises , Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis