“Freedom is indivisible; once it is restricted, a decline begins which is difficult to stop.”
Ludwig von Mises 140th Birthday – Part II
Wisdom From the Greatest Social Thinker of Our Time
By: George Noga – October 3, 2021
Ludwig Heinrich Elder von Mises, born in 1881, was an Austrian School economist, historian, logician and sociologist. He wrote and lectured extensively on the societal virtues of classical liberalism and is best known for his work on human choice and action. He is revered today because his body of work has proven accurate about the success of free market capitalism and the failure of collectivism. He was a mentor to Friedrich Hayek, author of The Road to Serfdom. Von Mises died in 1973 at age 92. Note: please visit our website at www.mllg.us to read last week’s Part I on von Mises.
The legacy of von Mises is kept alive today by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, located at Auburn University. It maintains a website with a blog, books and publications, podcasts and a graduate program in Austrian economics. The institute also publishes a free daily (M-F) newsletter chock full of articles applying von Mises’ teachings to today’s issues. You can subscribe to the newsletter at https://mises.org. This is one of a very few publications I look at each day. It can be a bit wonkish – but give it a try,
More Wisdom from Ludwig von Mises (lightly edited)
Socialism: “The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they want a system characterized by rigid observance of routine and resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals but they are intent on abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries but they want to make government omnipotent. They promise the Garden of Eden but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office.”
Dictatorship: “Nobody ever recommended a dictatorship aiming at ends other than those he himself approved. He who advocates dictatorship always advocates the unrestricted rule of his own will.”
Marx and freedom: “The Marxian love of democratic institutions was a stratagem only, a pious fraud for the deception of the masses. Within a socialist community there is no room left for freedom.”
“Socialism is not what it pretends to be. It is not the pioneer of a better world, but the spoiler of civilization; it does not build, it destroys.”
Status of workers: “In Lenin’s eyes workers were only workers and not also customers. He believed they were slaves under capitalism and their status did not change under socialism. Socialism substitutes the sovereignty of a dictator or a committee of dictators for the sovereignty of consumers. Workers are no longer men, they are pawns in the hands of the chief social engineer. Even freedom to rear progeny will be taken.”
Von Mises sampler: “If history teaches anything, it is that private property is linked inextricably with civilization. . . . . . Making undeveloped nations more prosperous cannot be solved by material aid. It is a spiritual and intellectual problem. . . . . All people, however fanatical they may be in their zeal to disparage capitalism, implicitly pay homage to it by clamoring for the products it turns out . . . . . Economic knowledge is an essential element to human civilization; it is the foundation on which all moral, intellectual and technological achievements have been built. If men disregard its teachings, they will stamp out society and the human race.”
Next up is our politically incorrect celebration of Columbus Day
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