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
All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of individual thought and action in rational decision-making.
Ludwig Von Mises asserts that rationality originates from the individual, highlighting that thinking, reasoning, and acting are inherently personal processes. This underscores the significance of individualism in understanding human behavior and decision-making, suggesting that collective actions stem from the choices made by individuals rather than groups.
In practice
In a debate about personal freedom, this quote can highlight the importance of individual responsibility.
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.
It is clear that there is some difference between ends: some ends are energeia [energy], while others are products which are additional to the energeia.
Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.
Perhaps it is of more value to infuriate philosophers than to go along with them.
But the forces of evil have not abdicated. The malevolent ghosts of hatred are resurgent with a fury and a boldness that are as astounding as they are nauseating: ethnic conflicts, religious riots, anti-Semitic incidents here, there, and everywhere. What is wrong with these morally degenerate people that they abuse their freedom, so recently won?
I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful.
Christianity is in its nature revolutionary
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