Mises Daily

While his major practical interest had not been domestic or economic affairs, he had helped build up the absolutism of the French state.

"Meanwhile, states that do not reward being poor find poverty levels falling."

Instead of addressing the Depression though the proven expedient of private-bank-issued scrip, the Roosevelt administration's plan involved suspension of the gold standard, followed by devaluation and the abrogation of the gold clause, cartelization of the banks of the country, the National Recovery Act, the Wagner Act, the alphabet-soup agencies, Social Security, and the beginning of an ever-expanding government.

If we consciously specialize in one kind of activity, we can do so only because we count upon other individuals being ready to serve us just as we are prepared to serve them. It is here that the great principle of solidarity, which govern society, comes into play.

"By anticipating the future, speculators may bring about events earlier and reduce their potential harm."

Conservatives have always believed that once a nation goes Communist it is irrevocably doomed — that collectivism, once adopted, is irreversible. Yugoslavia, and to some extent the remainder of Eastern Europe, have shown that this is not true, that the spirit of freedom can never be extinguished.

Keynesianism ignores the fact that government spending must come either from tax dollars or from the printing presses, both of which harm the common man. Instead, Keynesianism promises that we can all pick one another's pockets — and all get rich doing it!

In the real world, of course, the real danger of credit expansion and the boom-bust cycle comes from fiat money and fractional-reserve banking.

Obviously the word [mercantilism] can only be used within strict limitations, but, alien as the conception of a national economy still was to the governments of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, it is plain from their conduct that they desired to protect the industry and commerce of their subjects against foreign competition, and even, here and there, to introduce new forms of activity into their countries.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor made war inevitable. But the attack was not Roosevelt's reason for going to war. It was his excuse.