Ludwig von Mises Quotes

Political economy is the science of free society. Its theory and its history alike establish this position. Its fundamental maxims, Laissez-faire and 'Pas trop gouverner' are at war with all kinds of slavery, for they in fact assert that individuals and peoples prosper most when governed least.

F. A. Hayek is probably the most prominent advocate of capitalism in the present period.

Capitalism is the only economic system compatible with free individuals

.. the most intelligent defender of capitalism in the modern period is Friedrich Hayek.

Democracy is acceptable to neo-liberals only in so far as it does not contradict the free market.

Political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.

Liberalism is a force truly of the spirit proceeding from the deep realization that economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved.

There is no kind of freedom and liberty other than the kind which the market economy brings about.

Conservatives tend to believe there is a close and necessary connection between prosperity and freedom - that economic freedom is an essential part of human freedom.

The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.

The independence of the economic sphere was a tenet of faith with Liberalism.

I do believe in the free market.

I would say I'm a 19th-century liberal, possibly even an 18th-century one.

Ask me not, 'Are you rightwing,' but ask me 'Are you a committed believer in individual freedom, the values of the enlightenment?' Then, yeah, if being rightwing means believing Adam Smith was right, both in the 'Wealth of Nations' and the 'Theory of Moral Sentiments,' then I'm rightwing.

Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism.

Classic English liberalism of the sort that 'The Economist' was founded to champion and still espouses is about open societies and free markets.

The future of private enterprise capitalism is also the future of a free society. There is no possibility of having a politically free society unless the major part of its economic resources are operated under a capitalistic private enterprise system.

The program of liberalism if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production.

A real gold standard is thoroughly consistent with [classical] liberal principles and I, for one, am entirely in favor of measures promoting its development.

Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself ... Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.

What vitiates entirely the socialists economic critique of capitalism is their failure to grasp the sovereignty of the consumers in the market economy.

We need a free economy not only for the renewed material prosperity it will bring, but because it is indispensable to individual freedom, human dignity and to a more just, more honest society.

Government control of the economy, no matter in whose behalf, has been the source of all the evils in our industrial society -- and the solution is laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., the abolition of any and all forms of intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.

As a result of the efforts of Hayek .. and the many others who share his general outlook, the idea of a centrally planned and centrally administered economy, so popular in the 1930s and early 1940s, has been discredited.

You can have economic freedom without political freedom, but you cannot have political freedom without economic freedom.