Quotes from Ludwig von Mises

For when the Law of Price declares that a good actually commands a particular price, and explains why it does so, it of course implies that the good is able to command this price, and explains why it is able to do so. The Law of Price comprehends the Law of Exchange-Value.

Under bilateral competition, market-price is determined within a range whose upper limit is set by the valuations of the lowest bidder among the actual buyers and the highest offerer among the excluded would-be sellers, and whose lower limit is set by the valuations of the lowest offerer among the actual sellers and the highest bidder among the excluded would-be buyers.

The first value of money was clearly the value which the goods used as money possessed (thanks to their suitability for satisfying human wants in other ways) at the moment when they were first used as common media of exchange.

If the objective exchange-value of money must always be linked with a pre-existing market exchange-ratio between money and other economic goods (since otherwise individuals would not be in a position to estimate the value of the money), it follows that an object cannot be used as money unless, at the moment when its use as money begins, it already possesses an objective exchange-value based on some other use.

I have pointed out that the worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends.

The equality Liberalism creates is equality before the Law; it has never sought any other. From the liberal point of view, therefore, criticism which condemns this equality as inadequate — maintaining that true equality is full equality of income through equal distribution of commodities — is unjustified.

Credit expansion results in the recurrence of economic crisis and periods of depression. Inflation makes the prices of all commodities and services soar. The attempts to enforce wage rates higher than those the unhampered market would have determined produce mass unemployment prolonged year after year. Price ceilings result in a drop in the supply of commodities affected. The economists have proved these theorems in an irrefutable way. No

If we assume that all men have the same capacity and application for work and if we disregard the disutility of labor, labor in such a world would not be an economic good. If

ONE of the more important arguments in favour of Socialism is that contained in the slogan 'self-government in industry'. As in the political sphere the King's absolutism was broken by the peoples' right to share decisions and later by its sole right to decide, so the absolutism of owners of the means of production and of entrepreneurs is to be abolished by consumers and workers.

Originally, i.e., before Karl Marx, the term "right" meant the supporters of representative government and civil liberties, as opposed to the "left" who favored royal absolutism and the absence of civil rights.

Nikolai Bukharin [1888–1938], a Communist author who lived in a Communist country, wrote a pamphlet in 19175, in which he said, we asked for freedom of the press, thought, and civil liberties in the past because we were in the opposition and needed these liberties to conquer. Now that we have conquered, there is no longer any need for such civil liberties.

Os bens, as mercadorias, as riquezas e todas as demais noções de conduta não são elementos da natureza, mas sim elementos da mente e da conduta humana. Quem deseje entrar neste segundo universo deve abstrair-se do mundo exterior, centrando a sua atenção no significado das ações empreendidas pelos homens

Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power.

the essence of the ownership of the means of production in a society which divides labour differs from that found where the division of labour does not take place; and that it differs essentially from the ownership of consumption goods in any economic order.

Mises showed that the end of private property would mean the end to economic rationality.

In fact, "classes" don't exist in nature. It is our thinking—our arranging in categories—that constructs classes in our minds. The question is not whether social classes exist in the sense of Karl Marx; the question is whether we can use the concept of social classes in the way in which Karl Marx meant it. We can't.

The alternative to the rule of law is the rule of despots.

Na filosofia de Comte, bem como na de Marx, não há espaço para Deus e sua infinita bondade.

Society does not exist apart from the thoughts and actions of people. It does not have "interests" and does not aim at anything. The same is valid for all other collectives.

There is no use in arguing about the adequacy of ethical precepts. They are derived from intuition; they are arbitrary and subjective. There is no objective standard available with regard to which they could be judged. Ultimate ends are chosen by the individual's judgments of value. They cannot be determined by scientific inquiry and logical reasoning.

Unfortunately, purges are not something which happen just because men are imperfect. Purges are the necessary consequences of the philosophical foundation of Marxian socialism.

This is the necessary unavoidable consequence of the fact that, according to Marxist doctrine, you do not consider the possibility of dissent among honest people; either you think as I do, or you are a traitor and must be liquidated.

No opposition party wants to assign so much power to another party. In drafting socialist programs, everybody assumes tacitly that he himself will be the planner or the dictator, or that the planner or dictator will be intellectually completely dependent on him and that the planner or dictator will be his handyman.

Our whole civilization rests on the fact that men have always succeeded in beating off the attack of the re-distributors.