Ludwig von Mises Quotes

Europeans call it socialism, Americans call it welfare, and Barack Obama calls it change.

If you throw a welfare state into the middle of a democracy, it’s very hard to get rid of the beast.

Throughout history, politicians have used other people's property to buy themselves power. That is the primary achievement of the welfare state.

Even in the United States, 'you have a sort of welfare state, even if you don't want to admit it -- you don't allow people to die on the street.

Compassion is good but politicians have turned compassion into the welfare state.

They proclaim that every man is entitled to exist without labor and, the laws of reality to the contrary notwithstanding, is entitled to receive his 'minimum sustenance' his food, his clothes, his shelter with no effort on his part, as his due and his birthright. To receive it from whom.

The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly, and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.

The right combination is between a free economy and social policy that addresses the needs of society and creates equal opportunity.

A welfare state, properly conceived, can be an integral part of a conservative society.

I think most Americans believe in a basic social safety net.

There is much in American society which I admire, but I have long held the view that the absence of an effective safety net in that country means that too many needy citizens fall by the wayside. That is not the path that Australia will tread. Nor do we want the burdens of nanny state paternalism that now weigh down many economies in Europe.

The welfare state may be well-intentioned, but it is a Ponzi scheme

The welfare state is institutionalized crime - 'organized plunder,' as the French economist Frederic Bastiat called it. It systematizes what is intrinsically wrong: forcing some people to support others. The Democrats favor the indefinite expansion of the welfare state, perpetually increasing the ratio of force to freedom in society.

Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State's honey and avoiding the sting?

I wrote my thesis on welfare policy.

By common consent, most European countries support the maintenance of robust welfare states and are comfortable with taxation systems that support them.

Today we are ending welfare as we know it.

Treaties or international covenants which provide human rights to food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, or old age would transform the United States into a completely socialistic state.

Generous, effective, and broadly accessible social welfare policies do not require large government bureaucracies staffed with armies of public servants.

There is much in American society which I admire, but I have long held the view that the absence of an effective safety net in that country means that too many needy citizens fall by the wayside.

Social Security, which transformed life for the elderly in this country, was 'socialist.' The concept of the 'minimum wage' was seen as a radical intrusion into the marketplace and was described as 'socialist.'

The original purpose of the welfare state was to lift people into self-sufficiency, not to create a permanent underclass dependent on taxpayers.

I disagree with those who say welfare is a waste of money. It's a good means to creating new jobs.

Instead of a universal basic income, we could have a basic income guarantee. Or, as economists prefer to call it, a negative income tax.

The Left loves the poor so much it creates more of them every time it gets into power.