Ludwig von Mises Quotes

Capitalism is not simply mass production, but mass production to satisfy the needs of the masses.

What is “destructive competition” for producers is a bargain bonanza for consumers.

The capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production which unavoidably means also production for the masses.

The essential point to grasp is that in dealing with capitalism we are dealing with an evolutionary process.

Capitalism had been more revolutionary than any previous social system. It had swept away without scruples old institutions and modes of thought, if they were found to stand in its way.

Obviously we're a consumer nation and you have the power to influence these big corporations who are running the world right now through what you chose to, or not to, purchase.

And this thesis is somewhat connected with general social and political observations, because it establishes the fact that the number of consumers is considerably larger than the number of producers, a fact which exercises a not inconsiderable social and political pressure.

The women are at an advantage - we represent the buying power in this country.

Within a market, organizations have interests distinct from and often antagonistic to the market processes that produced and sustain them.

Revolution is the duty of the worker and the peasant masses and not of just a few heroes, hence the necessity to organize these masses and draw them into the struggle.

Organize, transport your class antagonisms from the economic sphere, where they are perpetrated against you, where they alone can succeed. Take power, become the master of the state. Then, instead of being subject to capitalist law you will make socialist law.

Prediction of whether or not the capitalist order will survive is, in part, a matter of terminology.

The Clarion will convert England to Socialism in seven years. British working classes are not fit for Socialism yet.

America is as much an economic phenomenon as it is a nation.

Capitalism … has existed for fewer than 300 years. If the entire history of Homo sapiens was a 24-hour day, then capitalism has existed for two minutes … Economic systems come, and economic systems go. No economic system lasts forever. Capitalism is not likely to last forever, either.

Although capitalism is, in principle, strongly individualistic, it has contributed in practice to reinforce the trend to integration, because it has made our lives more and more interdependent.

Any existing structures and all the conditions of doing business are always in a process of change. Every situation is being upset before it has had time to work itself out. Economic progress, in a capitalist society, means turmoil.

The difficulty lies, not in finding a producer, but in finding a consumer.

Despite the miracles of capitalism, it doesn't do well in popularity polls. One of the reasons is that capitalism is always evaluated against the non-existent, non-realizable utopias of socialism or communism. Any earthly system, when compared to a Utopia will pale in comparison. But for the ordinary person, capitalism, with all of its warts, is superior to any system yet devised to deal with our everyday needs and desires.

The insurance companies use their economic power to grind down working people..

When the forces of liberalism and capitalism converge, change happens.

People do, as long as you have markets, you'll have excesses.

The struggle for power in our day lies not between Crown and people, or between a caste of nobles and a bourgeoisie, but between the classes who have property and the classes who have none.

In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords ... to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles…. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose.

The capitalist distribution network, a complex chain of factory, transport, warehouse and retail outlet, is one of the greatest male accomplishments in the history of culture.