Inequality of wealth and incomes is an essential feature of the market economy. It is the implement that makes the consumers supreme in giving them the power to force all those engaged in production to comply with their orders. It forces all those engaged in production to the utmost exertion in the service of the consumers. It makes competition work. He who best serves the consumers profits most and accumulates riches.
Ludwig von MisesIf the present tax rates had been in effect from the beginning of our century, many who are millionaires today would live under more modest circumstances. But all those new branches of industry which supply the masses with articles unheard of before, would operate, if at all, on a much smaller scale, and their products would be beyond the reach of the common man.
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 MisesThe flowering of human society depends on two factors: the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound social and economic theories, and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority.
Ludwig von MisesIt is necessary to curb the power of government. This is the task of all constitutions, bills of rights and laws. This is the meaning of all struggles which men have fought for liberty.
Ludwig von MisesThere is but one means available to improve the material conditions of mankind: to accelerate the growth of capital accumulated as against the growth in population. The greater the amount of capital invested per head of the worker, the more and better goods can be produced and consumed. This is what capitalism, the much abused profit system, has brought about and brings about daily anew. Yet, most present-day governments and political parties are eager to destroy this system.
Ludwig von Mises