The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau.
Ludwig von MisesWhat is called economic progress is the joint effect of the activities of the three progressive groups-or classes-of the savers, the scientist-inventors, and the entrepreneurs, operating in a market economy as far as it is not sabotaged by the endeavors of the nonprogressive majority of the routinists and the public policies supported by them.
Ludwig von MisesWhat vitiates entirely the socialists economic critique of capitalism is their failure to grasp the sovereignty of the consumers in the market economy.
Ludwig von MisesIn the socialist commonwealth every economic change becomes an undertaking whose success can be neither appraised in advance nor later retrospectively determined. There is only groping in the dark. Socialism is the abolition of rational economy.
Ludwig von Mises