It is true that some secluded intellectuals in their esoteric circles talk differently. They proclaim the priority of what they call eternal absolute values and feign in their declamationsโnot in their personal conductโa disdain of things secular and transitory. But the public ignores such utterances. The main goal of present-day political action is to secure for the respective pressure group memberships the highest material well-being. The only way for a leader to succeed is to instill in people the conviction that his program best serves the attainment of this goal.
Ludwig von MisesThese people talk of a "middle-of-the-road" policy. What they do not see is that the isolated interference, which means the interference with only one small part of the economic system, brings about a situation which the government itself โ and the people who are asking for government interference โ find worse than the conditions they wish to abolish: the people who are asking for rent control are very angry when they discover there is a shortage of apartments and a shortage of housing.
Ludwig von MisesThe capitalist system was termed "capitalism" not by a friend of the system, but by an individual who considered it to be the worst of all historical systems, the greatest evil that had ever befallen mankind. That man was Karl Marx.
Ludwig von MisesThe "progressives" who today masquerade as "liberals" may rant against "fascism"; yet it is their policy that paves the way for Hitlerism. Nothing could have been more helpful to the success of the National-Socialist (Nazi) movement than the methods used by the "progressives," denouncing Nazism as a party serving the interests of "capital." The German workers knew this tactic too well to be deceived by it again.
Ludwig von MisesLibrary of the Works of Ludwig von Misesโ. Here is an article he wrote in 1951, some two years after his magnum opus Human Action appeared, where is lays out his case in a more popular form. The money sentences are โEconomic theory has demonstrated in an irrefutable way that a prosperity created by an expansionist monetary and credit policy is illusory and must end in a slump, an economic crisis. It has happened again and again in the past, and it will happen in the future, too.
Ludwig von Mises