Mises Daily

[This article is taken from chapter 19 of The Ethics of Liberty.

Economic freedom in fact reduces unemployment to levels significantly below those in less free countries. The Amish may hold the secret to full employment, but rejection of modern capitalism is full employment in poverty and hardship, not the rich fruits of progress.

The regulators are effectively saying that they know more efficient ways of organizing markets than those who actually buy and sell.

One day Social Security will go from being a reality supported by myths to a memory whose myths were debunked by reason.

And as every good socialist knows, the best way to get rid of advertising is to get rid of competition and the need to market anything in the first place.

Leftist ideologues do pose a real threat. Many people find their rhetoric convincing. But all the Left really has to defend their position on minimum wages and other issues are faulty studies, demagogic remarks regarding poverty and racism, and vague references to "social justice." Logic and evidence are on our side.

Like any other consumer, the government must turn to the production process — that is, to producers — for its funds. But unlike ordinary consumers, who obtain their incomes through voluntary exchange, the government obtains its income by means of forcible taxation.

Between the right's love for military socialism and the left's love of forced de-industrialization, together with the perpetual menace of politicians' clamor to make history, the cause of liberty needs even more ardent defenders.

Though some comic fans will be quick to put the blame at the foot of Marvel for price increases, they would be more correct to blame the Federal Reserve, the "publisher" responsible for the creation of our supply of dollars. Though society has come to accept the general rise in prices as a normal part of our lives, before the founding of the Federal Reserve and the removal of the US dollar from the gold standard, prices held relatively steady.

I hold him to have been one of our century's great intellectual figures, whose neglect by mainstream academicians is inexcusable.