The interventionists do not approach the study of economic matters with scientific disinterestedness. Most of them are driven by an envious resentment against those whose incomes are larger than their own. This bias makes it impossible for them to see things as they really are. For them the main thing is not to improve the conditions of the masses, but to harm the entrepreneurs and capitalists even if this policy victimizes the immense majority of the people.
Ludwig von MisesAll people, entrepreneurs as well as non-entrepreneurs, look askance upon any profits earned by other people. Envy is a common weakness of men. People are loath to acknowledge the fact that they themselves could have earned profits if they had displayed the same foresight and judgment the successful businessman did.
Ludwig von MisesThe wealth of the well-to-do of an industrial society is both the cause and effect of the masses' well-being.
Ludwig von MisesEconomic prosperity is not so much a material problem; it is, first of all, an intellectual, spiritual, and moral problem.
Ludwig von MisesAs soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individuals mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest details.
Ludwig von MisesWe do not assert that the capitalist mode of economic calculation guarantees the absolutely best solution of the allocation of factors of production. Such absolutely perfect solutions of any problem are out of reach of mortal men. What the operation of a market not sabotaged by the interference of compulsion and coercion can bring about is merely the best solution accessible to the human mind under the given state of technological knowledge and the intellectual abilities of the age's shrewdest men.
Ludwig von Mises