Ludwig von Mises Quotes
It is extremely difficult for our contemporaries to conceive of the conditions of free banking because they take government interference with banking for granted and as necessary.
von Mises, Ludwig. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. Yale University Press, 1949.
March 4, 1933 was the date that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had assumed the Presidency from Herbert Hoover and used government to combat the Great Depression whereas Hoover would not take any of these steps as the conservative wing of his party and he regarded anything that government did was “creeping socialism”. Historically, it is useful to recall what steps Roosevelt took that were described as socialism. These include Social Security, Federal Deposit Insurance for bank accounts, aid to farmers, the Civilian Conservation Corps, Regulation of the stock market, regulation of banks and many other things that are key elements of modern capitalism which virtually every capitalistic nations has in one form or another. Long after Truman was out of office, the most conservative elements of the Republican Party have accused every Democratic President of “creeping socialism” when they were actually quite opposed to socialism. Even when their career before their presidency was full of criticisms of socialism and policies that are opposite, as in the case of President Obama, the President has been accused of being a socialist. However, it started with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S Truman.
At the time any private bank could issue their own money. Private sector bankers thought it outrageous that the Congress should consider trampling on their rights to issue money. The solution that was finally adopted some years later was to use the Federal Reserve Board to control the money supply. It is independent of the Congress and the President but members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Our system, like no other system, is a compromise where neither the Government or the Private Sector controls the American money supply.
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian School economist, historian, logician and sociologist. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the societal contributions of classical liberalism. He is best known for his work on praxeology, a study of human choice and action.
