Ludwig von Mises Quotes

In areas where competitive markets work well beyond question, they are constantly under attack by government—members of both parties.

What is really at stake here is the survival of the kind of economy under which this country has grown great, the free-enterprise system

The only place you have real monopolies is where government provides them.

I am firmly opposed to the Government entering any business the major purpose of which is competition with our citizens.

We want a market economy without any adjectives. Any compromises with that will only fuzzy up the problems we have.

If you can't compete fairly, honestly, effectively, no government should intervene. Now, some governments do. They prop up failing industries.

Americans mythologize competition and credit it with saving us from socialist bread lines. Actually, capitalism and competition are opposites. Capitalism is premised on the accumulation of capital, but under perfect competition, all profits get competed away.

Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.

I'm not against business. I'm against big business in bed with big government.

There's a difference between a free market and free-for-all market.

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

In a market economy, however, the individual has some possibility of escaping from the power of the state.

My claim is that we do not have a market economy, but a capitalist economy.

When the government gets involved in pricing, I don't think it's the right way to look at a business.

There is no pure free-market economy.

Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined 'free market' is the first step towards understanding capitalism.

You've got Washington picking winners and losers. And so, all of a sudden, decisions are being made on what helps politicians, not what helps the economy. Some will call it socialism. Some will call it a command and control economy. Whatever it is, it's antithetical to the American experience.

Either you believe in markets, or you believe in government.

I do not expect monopoly to restrain itself.

I am just as anxious as Mr. Brandeis can be, to have trade regulated by competition as far as possible; but as a matter of fact, competition has broken down hopelessly in this country to adequately control prices, to adequately control quality, and we all know it… it is the theory regarding competition that it will regulate prices and quality; that it will give us reasonable prices and superior quality. That is a beautiful theory. But if this theory has ever corresponded to the facts in the past (and this I doubt) we may be sure that in the future it will never again do so.

In this country in colonial days the laws were very strict against combinations and contracts in restraint of trade. But here again there was a gradual amelioration of the laws, until co-operation was permitted along many lines, including division of territory, limitation of output, and even fixing of prices; provided always that, as a result of the co-operation, the combinations or contracts did not result in monopoly, were not general, were not immoral, and were not contrary to public policy.

Free prices are the price of freedom.

We cannot separate politics from economics.

I’m a big fan of the free market system but the free market system works [only] when you have robust competition.

Capital is good; the capitalist is a helper if he is not also a monopolist. We can safely let any one get as rich as he can if he will not despoil others in doing so.