Ludwig von Mises Quotes

The capitalist system, in spite of all obstacles put in its way by governments and politicians, has raised the standard of living of the masses in an unprecedented way.

I believe that the free enterprise system is the greatest engine of prosperity the world's ever known.

Capitalism has improved the standard of living of the wage earners to an unprecedented extent. The average American family enjoys today amenities of which, only a hundred years ago, not even the richest nabobs dreamed.

Capitalism is the greatest poverty-fighting machine in the history of mankind, and I'm proud of the role I've played in it.

Capitalism works.

Understanding capitalism is in some ways simple. At its best, capitalism rewards creators, makers and providers: the people and firms that create valuable things for others, like imaginative technologies and good food, cars and drugs.

Capitalism is the engine that has grown economies.

Free enterprise is the best economic system in the history of the world, because it is the only system where you can make poor people richer and you don't have to make rich people poor.

The left hates capitalism, not because of freedom and liberty - although they do. But the primary they hate capitalism is that it is the most efficient engine to create wealth for the greatest number of people in a society that has ever been devised. Nobody's ever claimed it's perfect. Nobody's ever said it's flawless. But it's better than anything else out there, particularly anything left has to offer.

Capitalism will continue to eliminate mass poverty in more and more places and to an increasingly marked extent if it is merely permitted to do so.

Free enterprise system was born the second year the pilgrims were here. And of course, it has made America the most prosperous country in the world.

Capitalism has been called a system of greed—yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of.

The free market economy is supposed to be the only path leading to the happiness of humanity by promoting wealth and prosperity, power and influence of nations.

Right now people seem to be very tentative about the positive benefits of capitalism.

The business of America is business.

Capitalism without capital is just an ism.

Capitalism is that form of private property economy in which innovations are carried out by means of borrowed money.

Free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity!

Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.

Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it. It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health and vigor.

American prosperity and American free enterprise are both highly unusual in the world, and we should not overlook the possibility that the two are connected.

I think it's fairly easy to provide a moral defense of capitalism. It has been - over the last 200 years - the underlying basis for enormous increases in productivity and human welfare and rising living standards, particularly in the United States, and in the industrialized nations but in fact, in most parts of the world.

We affirm that the true story of capitalism is now beginning, because capitalism is not a system of oppression only, but is also a selection of values, a coordination of hierarchies, a more amply developed sense of individual responsibility.

Capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production but also in knowledge.

The truth is that capitalism has not only multiplied population figures, but at the same time, improved the people's standard of living in an unprecedented way. Neither economic thinking nor historical experience suggests that any other social system could be as beneficial to the masses as capitalism. The results speak for themselves. The market economy needs no apologists and propagandists. It can apply to itself the words of Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph in St. Paul's: Si monumentum requires, circumspice.