The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
As the prosperity of the nation and the height of wage rates depend on a continual increase in the capital invested in its plants, mines and farms, it is one of the foremost tasks of good government to remove all obstacles that hinder the accumulation and investment of new capital.
Interpretation
Good government plays a critical role in fostering economic prosperity by facilitating capital investment.
In this quote, Ludwig Von Mises emphasizes the importance of continuous capital accumulation for a nation's prosperity. He argues that the government should actively work to eliminate barriers to investment, as this directly influences wage rates and overall economic health, highlighting the interplay between capital investment and the well-being of society.
In practice
In a speech about economic reforms, one might quote Mises to advocate for pro-investment policies.
The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom.
Wars of aggression are popular nowadays with those nations convinced that only victory and conquest could improve their material well-being.
Only stilted pedants can conceive the idea that there are absolute norms to tell what is beautiful and what is not. They try to derive from the works of the past a code of rules with which, as they fancy, the writers and artists of the future should comply. But the genius does not cooperate with the pundit.
The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.
The public firm can nowhere maintain itself in free competition with the private firm; it is possible today only where it has a monopoly that excludes competition. Even that alone is evidence of its lesser economic productivity.
Each epoch has found in the Gospels what it sought to find there, and has overlooked what it wished to overlook.
The true law of economics is chance, and we learned people arbitrarily seize on a few moments and establish them as laws.
America's role in the global economy inevitably was going to diminish; we're smaller relative to - as China, India, other emerging markets grow.
Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes a bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done.
We ask our companies to restructure; we ask employees to work more for less money because there is overproduction, but then we're unable to defend them from cheaper Chinese imports. We are insane.
This is the paradox of thrift: belt-tightening causes people to lose their jobs, because other people are not buying what they produce, so their debt burden rises rather than falls.
The first step to prescribing the right medicine is to recognize the cause of the illness. And, when it comes to what is ailing the global economy, extreme monetary easing has been more cause than cure. The sooner we recognize that, the stronger and more sustainable the global economic recovery will be.
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