Thought of the Day #14

To regain some sanity in an insane world I return to some of Ludwig von Mises pithy comments.

There is no point in deceiving ourselves. American public opinion rejects the market economy, the capitalistic free enterprise system that provided the nation with the highest standard of living ever attained. Full government control of all activities of the individual is virtually the goal of both national parties.

Seen from the point of view of the particular group interests of the bureaucrats, every measure that makes the government payroll swell is progress.

The cyclical fluctuations of business are not an occurrence originating in the sphere of unhampered market, but a product of government interference with business conditions designed to lower the rate of interest below the height at which the free market would have fixed it.

A short time ago the demagogues blamed capitalism for the poverty of the masses. Today they rather blame capitalism for the “affluence” that it bestows upon the common man.

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man’s fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.

Credit expansion is the governments’ foremost tool in their struggle against the market economy. In their hands it is the magic wand designed to conjure away the scarcity of capital goods, to lower the rate of interest or to abolish it altogether, to finance lavish government spending, to expropriate the capitalists, to contrive everlasting booms, and to make everybody prosperous.

The time is now.