Mises Search

[Excerpted from The Causes of the Economic Crisis ] The Marxian critique censures the capitalistic social order for the anarchy and planlessness of its production methods. Allegedly, every entrepreneur produces blindly, guided only by his desire for profit, without any concern as to whether his action satisfies a need. Thus, for Marxists, it is

[This article is excerpted from The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (1954). An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Brad O’Connell, is available for download .]   Before answering this question it is necessary to put into better relief the distinctive feature of capitalism as against that of a status society. It is quite customary to liken the

[ The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (1954). An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Colin Hussey, is available for download .] The anticapitalistic bias of the intellectuals is a phenomenon not limited to one or a few countries only. But it is more general and more bitter in the United States than it is in the European countries. To explain

[The Introduction to Mises’s Liberalism (1927).] Liberalism The philosophers, sociologists, and economists of the 18th and the early part of the 19th century formulated a political program that served as a guide to social policy first in England and the United States, then on the European continent, and finally in the other parts of the inhabited

[Excerpted from The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (1954).] A superficial observer of present-day ideologies could easily fail to recognize the prevailing bigotry of the molders of public opinion and the machinations that render inaudible the voice of dissenters. There seems to be disagreement with regard to issues considered as important.

[Why do so many people made rich by the market try so hard to bite the invisible hand that feeds them? In this passage from the The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (1954), Mises explains the petty jealousies of the anticapitalistic rich.] On the market not hampered by the interference of external forces, the process which tends to convey control of

[ The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (1954)] The public, committed to socialist ideas, asks for socialist (”social”) novels and plays. The authors, themselves imbued with socialist ideas, are ready to deliver the stuff required. They describe unsatisfactory conditions which, as they insinuate, are the inevitable consequence of capitalism. They depict

[ Economic Freedom and Interventionism (1980)]   Animals are driven by instinctive urges. They yield to the impulse that prevails at the moment and peremptorily asks for satisfaction. They are the puppets of their appetites. Man’s eminence is to be seen in the fact that he chooses between alternatives. He regulates his behavior deliberatively. He

[ Economic Freedom and Interventionism (1980)]   A long line of eminent authors, beginning with Adam Ferguson , tried to grasp the characteristic feature that distinguishes the modern capitalistic society, the market economy, from the older systems of the arrangement of social cooperation. They distinguished between warlike nations and commercial

[ Economic Freedom and Interventionism (1980)] About 60 years ago Gabriel Tarde (1843–1904) the great French sociologist, dealt with the problem of the popularization of luxuries. An industrial innovation, he pointed out, enters the market as the extravagance of an elite before it finally turns, step by step, into a need of each and all and is