The fully satisfied individual is purposeless, he does not act, he has no incentive to think, he spends his days in leisurely enjoyment of life. It is certain that living men can never attain such a state of perfection and equilibrium.
The rulers of that period had far-reaching powers over the activities of their subjects, while individual liberties were largely submerged.
In his new book Judgment in Moscow, Vladimir Bukovsky claims the spirit of the Bolsheviks was never really destroyed. And it has been kept alive with Western help.
Keynes's Malthusianism indicates that he had a defective understanding of the division of labor and the law of returns. Beyond that, his population policies reveal the totalitarianism inherent in the Keynesian vision.
The African continent is exceedingly rich in natural resources, yet the living standard of Africans is very low. The most plausible explanation for this discrepancy is the lack of a system that protects private property.
One East Berliner told me there was not much difference between “freedom” in West and East Berlin because some workers in West Berlin had to commute more than half an hour by bus to get to work. Hence, they had no freedom.
It's not necessary to completely destroy capitalism to impoverish us irrevocably. The further a regime moves in the direction of the "egalitarian" states of the old communist world, the worse the impoverishment will be.
In the 20th century, the US regime started refusing to recognize other regimes that failed to pass a morality test. But what was "moral" was never clear since FDR enthusiastically supported the blood-soaked Soviet regime under Stalin.
The history of poverty is almost the history of mankind. The ancient writers have left us few specific accounts of it because they took it for granted. It was the normal lot.
Much of the media discussion around the 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall will focus on American military politics and the politicians of the time. But to truly understand why the Soviet system in Eastern Europe collapsed, we must look to Mises's pioneering work on economic planning.
