Economics

The development of all the institutional features of capitalism is well illustrated by the economic history of the United States.

The socialist system, however, forbids this fundamental freedom to choose one’s own career. Under socialist conditions, there is only one economic authority, and it has the right to determine all matters concerning production. One of the characteristic features of our...

Economic progress is the leading manifestation of yet another major institutional feature of capitalism: the harmony of the rational self-interests of all men, in which the success of each promotes the well-being of all.

In a capitalist society, there is continuous mobility—poor people becoming rich and the descendants of those rich people losing their wealth and becoming poor.

It is no exaggeration to say I have learned more about the science of economics from George Reisman than from all other economists combined.

The idea of government as a paternal authority, as a guardian for everybody, is the idea of those who favor socialism.

The existence of freedom under laissez-faire capitalism requires the existence of government.

The 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.

The greatest era of capitalist development—the last two centuries—has taken place under the ongoing cultural influence of the philosophy of the Enlightenment.

In spite of all its benefits, capitalism has been furiously attacked and criticized. It is necessary that we understand the origin of this antipathy.

Economics belongs alongside mathematics, natural science, history, philosophy, and the humanities as an integral part of a liberal education.

The mere fact that you are living today is proof that capitalism has succeeded, whether or not you consider your own life very valuable.

What makes the science of economics necessary and important is the fact that while human life and well-being depend on the production of wealth, and the production of wealth depends on the division of labor, the division of labor does not exist or function automatically.

Passengers aren’t willing to pay for it.

Carl Menger’s Free Market Advice to an Austrian Crown Prince

A Three-Pronged Blunder, or, what Money is, and what it isn’t.

Socialism is the abolition of rational economy. There is only groping in the dark.

In the cloud-cuckoo lands of socialist fancy, roast pigeons will fly into the mouths of the comrades,with no realistic explanation of how this miracle is to take place.

Why are there still wild blueberries in the fields held in common?

“As soon as one gives up the conception of a freely established monetary price for goods of a higher order, rational production becomes completely impossible.” – Ludwig Von Mises

Man’s nature makes him need wealth; his simplest percep­tions make him desire it; the problem, they held, is to produce it. Economic theory, therefore, could take for granted the desire to consume, and focus on the ways and means by which production might be increased.