Ludwig von Mises: The Impossiblity of Economic Calculation Under Socialism

Excerpted from the great Austrian Economist Ludwig von Mises' magnum opus Human Action (source: Econolib) [bold added]

The paradox of "planning" is that it cannot plan, because of the absence of economic calculation. What is called a planned economy is no economy at all. It is just a system of groping about in the dark. There is no question of a rational choice of means for the best possible attainment of the ultimate ends sought. What is called conscious planning is precisely the elimination of conscious purposive action.

For more than a hundred years the substitution of socialist planning for private enterprise has been the main political issue. Thousands and thousands of books have been published for and against the communist plans. No other subject has been more eagerly discussed in private circles, in the press, in public gatherings, in the meetings of learned societies, in election campaigns, and in parliaments. Wars have been fought and rivers of blood have been shed for the cause of socialism. Yet in all these years the essential question has not been raised...

It is the two fundamental errors of mathematical economics that must be indicted.

The mathematical economists are almost exclusively intent upon the study of what they call economic equilibrium and the static state. Recourse to the imaginary construction of an evenly rotating economy is, as has been pointed out, an indispensable mental tool of economic reasoning. But it is a grave mistake to consider this auxiliary tool as anything else than an imaginary construction, and to overlook the fact that it has not only no counterpart in reality, but cannot even be thought through consistently to its ultimate logical consequences. The mathematical economist, blinded by the prepossession that economics must be constructed according to the pattern of Newtonian mechanics and is open to treatment by mathematical methods, misconstrues entirely the subject matter of his investigations. He no longer deals with human action but with a soulless mechanism mysteriously actuated by forces not open to further analysis. In the imaginary construction of the evenly rotating economy there is, of course, no room for the entrepreneurial function. Thus the mathematical economist eliminates the entrepreneur from his thought. He has no need for this mover and shaker whose never ceasing intervention prevents the imaginary system from reaching the state of perfect equilibrium and static conditions. He hates the entrepreneur as a disturbing element. The prices of the factors of production, as the mathematical economist sees it, are determined by the intersection of two curves, not by human action.

Moreover, in drawing his cherished curves of cost and price, the mathematical economist fails to see that the reduction of costs and prices to homogeneous magnitudes implies the use of a common medium of exchange. Thus he creates the illusion that calculation of costs and prices could be resorted to even in the absence of a common denominator of the exchange ratios of the factors of production.

The result is that from the writings of the mathematical economists the imaginary construction of a socialist commonwealth emerges as a realizable system of cooperation under the division of labor, as a full-fledged alternative to the economic system based on private control of the means of production. The director of the socialist community will be in a position to allocate the various factors of production in a rational way, i.e., on the ground of calculation. Men can have both socialist cooperation under the division of labor and rational employment of the factors of production. They are free to adopt socialism without abandoning economy in the choice of means. Socialism does not enjoin the renunciation of rationality in the employment of the factors of production. It is a variety of rational social action.

An apparent verification of these errors was seen in the experience of the socialist governments of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. People do not realize that these were not isolated socialist systems. They were operating in an environment in which the price system still worked. They could resort to economic calculation on the ground of the prices established abroad. Without the aid of these prices their actions would have been aimless and planless. Only because they were able to refer to these foreign prices were they able to calculate, to keep books, and to prepare their much talked about plans.

The Socialist Illusions of "Change": Ludwig von Mises on the Ethics of Capitalism

The election byword for any aspiring political candidate has always been about “CHANGE”.

Yet the problem of populist clamor for C-H-A-N-G-E has hardly been about the moral component of the individual, but rather such springs from INCENTIVES. In particular, the incentives generated by institutions/governance or political economic conditions: capitalism versus socialism or the market economy versus the welfare-warfare and bureaucratic state.

The great Austrian Economist Ludwig von Mises debunked the popular narrative of "change" via socialism (from Mises Wire) [bold mine]

In the expositions of Ethical Socialism one constantly finds the assertion that it presupposes the moral purification of men. As long as we do not succeed in elevating the masses morally we shall be unable to transfer the socialist order of society from the sphere of ideas to that of reality. The difficulties in the way of Socialism lie exclusively, or predominantly, in men's moral shortcomings. Some writers doubt whether this obstacle will ever be overcome; others are content to say that the world will not be able to achieve Socialism for the present or in the immediate future.

We have been able to show why the socialist economy is impracticable: not because men are morally too base, but because the problems that a socialist order would have to solve present insuperable intellectual difficulties. The impracticability of Socialism is the result of intellectual, not moral, incapacity. Socialism could not achieve its end, because a socialist economy could not calculate value. Even angels, if they were endowed only with human reason, could not form a socialistic community.

If a socialist community were capable of economic calculation, it could be set up without any change in men's moral character. In a socialist society different ethical standards would prevail from those of a society based on private ownership in the means of production. The temporary sacrifices demanded of the individual by society would be different. Yet it would be no more difficult to enforce the code of socialist morals than it is to enforce the code of capitalist morals, if there were any possibility of making objective computations within the socialist society. If a socialist society could ascertain separately the product of the labour of each single member of the society, his share in the social product could be calculated and his reward fixed proportionately to his productive contribution. Under such circumstances the socialist order would have no cause to fear that a comrade would fail to work with the maximum of energy for lack of any incentive to sweeten the toil of labour. Only because this condition is lacking, Socialism will have to construct for its Utopia a type of human being totally different from the race which now walks the earth, one to whom labour is not toil and pain, but joy and pleasure. Because such a calculus is out of the question, the Utopian socialist is obliged to make demands on men which are diametrically opposed to nature. This inadequacy of the human type which would cause the breakdown of Socialism, may appear to be of a moral order; on closer examination it turns out to be a question of intellect.

The Alleged Defects of Capitalist Ethics

To act reasonably means to sacrifice the less important to the more important. We make temporary sacrifices when we give up small things to obtain bigger things, as when we cease to indulge in alcohol to avoid its physiological after-effects. Men submit to the effort of labor in order that they may not starve.

Moral behavior is the name we give to the temporary sacrifices made in the interests of social co-operation, which is the chief means by which human wants and human life generally may be supplied. All ethics are social ethics. (If it be claimed that rational behavior, directed solely towards one's own good, should be called ethical too, and that we had to deal with individual ethics and with duties to oneself, we could not dispute it; indeed this mode of expression emphasizes perhaps better than ours, that in the last analysis the hygiene of the individual and social ethics are based on the same reasoning.) To behave morally, means to sacrifice the less important to the more important by making social co-operation possible.

The fundamental defect of most of the anti-utilitarian systems of ethics lies in the misconstruction of the meaning of the temporary sacrifices which duty demands. They do not see the purpose of sacrifice and foregoing of pleasure, and they construct the absurd hypothesis that sacrifice and renunciation are morally valuable in themselves. They elevate unselfishness and self-sacrifice and the love of compassion, which lead to them, to absolute moral values. The pain that at first accompanies the sacrifice is defined as moral because it is painful—which is very near asserting that all action painful to the performer is moral.

From the discovery of this confusion we can see why various sentiments and actions which are socially neutral or even harmful come to be called moral. Of course, even reasoning of this sort cannot avoid returning furtively to utilitarian ideas. If we are unwilling to praise the compassion of a doctor who hesitates to undertake a life-saving operation on the ground that he thereby saves the patient pain, and distinguish, therefore, between true and false compassion, we re-introduce the teleological consideration of purpose which we tried to avoid. If we praise unselfish action, then human welfare, as a purpose, cannot be excluded. There thus arises a negative utilitarianism: we are to regard as moral that which benefits, not the person acting, but others. An ethical ideal has been set up which cannot be fitted into the world we live in. Therefore, having condemned the society built up on "self-interest" the moralist proceeds to construct a society in which human beings are to be what his ideal requires. He begins by misunderstanding the world and laws; he then wishes to construct a world corresponding to his false theories, and he calls this the setting up of a moral ideal.

Man is not evil merely because he wants to enjoy pleasure and avoid pain—in other words, to live. Renunciation, abnegation, and self-sacrifice are not good in themselves. To condemn the ethics demanded by social life under Capitalism and to set up in their place standards for moral behavior which—it is thought—might be adopted under Socialism is a purely arbitrary procedure.

Quote of the Day: Liberalism is No religion, No World View, No Party of Special Interests

Liberalism is no religion, no world view, no party of special interests. It is no religion because it demands neither faith nor devotion, because there is nothing mystical about it, and because it has no dogmas. It is no world view because it does not try to explain the cosmos and because it says nothing and does not seek to say anything about the meaning and purpose of human existence. It is no party of special interests because it does not provide or seek to provide any special advantage whatsoever to any individual or any group. It is something entirely different. It is an ideology, a doctrine of the mutual relationship among the members of society and, at the same time, the application of this doctrine to the conduct of men in actual society. It promises nothing that exceeds what can be accomplished in society and through society. It seeks to give men only one thing, the peaceful, undisturbed development of material well-being for all, in order thereby to shield them from the external causes of pain and suffering as far as it lies within the power of social institutions to do so at all. To diminish suffering, to increase happiness: that is its aim.

No sect and no political party has believed that it could afford to forgo advancing its cause by appealing to men's senses. Rhetorical bombast, music and song resound, banners wave, flowers and colors serve as symbols, and the leaders seek to attach their followers to their own person. Liberalism has nothing to do with all this. It has no party flower and no party color, no party song and no party idols, no symbols and no slogans. It has the substance and the arguments. These must lead it to victory.

This is from the great Austrian Economist Ludwig von Mises, excerpted from Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition, published at the Mises Institute Wire

Quote of the Day: The Worst Thing That Can Happen to a Socialist

This is from Ludwig von Mises's Marxism Unmasked. (Hat tip EPJ)

Ludwig von Mises: The Peculiar and Unique Position of Economics

In celebration of this year's Holy week, residents of the Philippines will be having a long weekend.

So before I sign out for the week, here is a recommended read on the importance of economics and its effects to society and politics as articulated by the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises excerpted from Human Action (1949), chapter 37, "The Nondescript Character of Economics."

From the Mises Institute: (bold mine)

The Singularity of Economics

What assigns economics its peculiar and unique position in the orbit both of pure knowledge and of the practical utilization of knowledge is the fact that its particular theorems are not open to any verification or falsification on the ground of experience. Of course, a measure suggested by sound economic reasoning results in producing the effects aimed at, and a measure suggested by faulty economic reasoning fails to produce the ends sought. But such experience is always still historical experience, i.e., the experience of complex phenomena. It can never, as has been pointed out, prove or disprove any particular theorem. The application of spurious economic theorems results in undesired consequences. But these effects never have that undisputable power of conviction which the experimental facts in the field of the natural sciences provide. The ultimate yardstick of an economic theorem's correctness or incorrectness is solely reason unaided by experience.

The ominous import of this state of affairs is that it prevents the naïve mind from recognizing the reality of the things economics deals with. "Real" is, in the eyes of man, all that he cannot alter and to whose existence he must adjust his actions if he wants to attain his ends. The cognizance of reality is a sad experience. It teaches the limits on the satisfaction of one's wishes. Only reluctantly does man resign himself to the insight that there are things, viz., the whole complex of all causal relations between events, which wishful thinking cannot alter. Yet sense experience speaks an easily perceptible language. There is no use arguing about experiments. The reality of experimentally established facts cannot be contested.

But in the field of praxeological knowledge neither success nor failure speaks a distinct language audible to everybody. The experience derived exclusively from complex phenomena does not bar escape into interpretations based on wishful thinking. The naïve man's propensity to ascribe omnipotence to his thoughts, however confused and contradictory, is never manifestly and unambiguously falsified by experience. The economist can never refute the economic cranks and quacks in the way in which the doctor refutes the medicine man and the charlatan. History speaks only to those people who know how to interpret it on the ground of correct theories.

Economics and Public Opinion

The significance of this fundamental epistemological difference becomes clear if we realize that the practical utilization of the teachings of economics presupposes their endorsement by public opinion. In the market economy the realization of technological innovations does not require anything more than the cognizance of their reasonableness by one or a few enlightened spirits. No dullness and clumsiness on the part of the masses can stop the pioneers of improvement. There is no need for them to win the approval of inert people beforehand. They are free to embark upon their projects even if everyone else laughs at them. Later, when the new, better, and cheaper products appear on the market, these scoffers will scramble for them. However dull a man may be, he knows how to tell the difference between a cheaper shoe and a more expensive one, and to appreciate the usefulness of new products.

But it is different in the field of social organization and economic policies. Here the best theories are useless if not supported by public opinion. They cannot work if not accepted by a majority of the people. Whatever the system of government may be, there cannot be any question of ruling a nation lastingly on the ground of doctrines at variance with public opinion. In the end the philosophy of the majority prevails. In the long run there cannot be any such thing as an unpopular system of government. The difference between democracy and despotism does not affect the final outcome. It refers only to the method by which the adjustment of the system of government to the ideology held by public opinion is brought about. Unpopular autocrats can only be dethroned by revolutionary upheavals, while unpopular democratic rulers are peacefully ousted in the next election.

The supremacy of public opinion determines not only the singular role that economics occupies in the complex of thought and knowledge. It determines the whole process of human history. 

The customary discussions concerning the role the individual plays in history miss the point. Everything that is thought, done and accomplished is a performance of individuals. New ideas and innovations are always an achievement of uncommon men. But these great men cannot succeed in adjusting social conditions to their plans if they do not convince public opinion.

The flowering of human society depends on two factors: the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound social and economic theories, and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority.

Video: Ludwig von Mises on "Are Workers In Conflict with Employers?"

When asked to respond on the issue “Are the interests of the American wage earners in conflict with those of their employers, or are the two in agreement?" 

Here is the reply of the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (via Mises Blog)

Quote of the Day: Ludwig von Mises: The most important economist of the 20th century

Ludwig von Mises died 40 years ago today at the age of 92 in a hospital in New York.  To me, he was the most important economist of the 20th century because he addressed the most important economic issue of the century: capitalism versus socialism. His essay "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" (1920) and his book Socialism (1922) staked out a controversial position on the feasibility of complete central planning. Mises claimed that it was impossible for any society that wanted more than a primitive standard of living. The centrally planned economies that have existed have proved him right: they have had extensive but not complete central planning.  Complete central planning involves the abolition of money. The two countries that have tried it, the Soviet Union from 1920-1921 and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, found that the result was a rapid descent towards economic backwardness. Centrally planned economies therefore have grudgingly had to allow a sphere for individual initiative in exchange to correct in part the mistakes of the planners, and so they have had money, though it has been bad money. As the late Don Lavoie stressed in Rivalry and Central Planning (1984), a book that builds on Mises's ideas, "actually existing socialism" after the Soviet Union's attempted abolition of money marked a retreat from complete central planning. (Sorry, no link to Lavoie's book because it's out of print. You can find expensive used copies online, or go to the library.)

At the time of Mises's death, the reputation of capitalism was near its lowest ebb since the Great Depression. Inflation was starting to become a problem in the advanced capitalist countries. In the remainder of the 1970s, central planning  spread to South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan. It looked as though the Third World countries were moving closer to the Second World than to the First World.

And yet, cracks were appearing in the socialist façade. The first volume of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago was published in 1973. In 1978, local government officials and 18 Chinese farmers made a secret agreement to spur individual initiative in production through a partial de faco privatization of communal farmland. The success of this and other such arrangements elsewhere became the foundation of China's momentous official turn toward (though not all the way to) capitalism under Deng Xiaoping. Poland's Solidarity movement formed in 1980. By 20 years after Mises's death, socialism had collapsed, retreating to small redoubts in in Cuba and North Korea.

The underlying lesson of Mises's thought on socialism has nonetheless failed to penetrate deeply into economic policy making. Few people regard the collapse of extensive central planning as an argument against piecemeal central planning in monetary policy, transportation, education, health care, and other areas (including toilet paper in one country).

This is from non-Austrian economist Kurt Schuler writing at the FreeBanking.org

Mark Thornton on How to Read Mises

Interested to learn more about the contributions of the leader of the Austrian school of economics, the late great Ludwig von Mises? 

Austrian economist Mark Thornton at the Mises Blog recommends a step by step 'building process' approach—from easy to technical—to go about the works of von Mises 

October 10th is the 40th anniversary of the death of Ludwig von Mises. He was one of the most notable economists and social philosophers of the twentieth century who created an integrated, deductive science of economics. He based system on the fundamental axiom that human beings act purposely to achieve their desired goals. Mises left a legacy of books and articles that continue to teach and inspire people in a method and science that makes an undeniable case for a society based on freedom and peace.

Many have tried and failed to grasp the enormity of Mises’s contributions. I have been asked many times about “how to read Mises.” For a long time my only answer was “don’t start with Human Action, Mises’s magnum opus. Then, a few years ago, I set out to produce The Quotable Mises where I collected quotes from all his books. This book gives readers quick access to Mises’s contributions and viewpoints. It also serves as a handy tool for researchers and journalists.

It also gave me some insight into the question of how to read Mises. My suggestion now is to begin reading his shorter, popular articles, as well as audio and video lectures on Mises.org. Then proceed to his shorter books like Bureaucracy and Planned Chaos before moving to longer treatments such as Liberalism, A Critique of Interventionism, Omnipotent Government, and Nation, State, and Economy. Next take on the big four Theory of Money and Credit, Socialism, Epistemological Problems, and Theory and History. Finally, you are ready for the centerpiece of Mises’s system of economics, Human Action.

I believe that this approach to reading Mises works because Mises system was comprehensive and cohesive, but his writings represent a building process in which economics is constructed and where concepts are repeated in finer and more elaborate detail. What you might not understand at one level becomes increasingly clear, coherent, and relevant for understanding his overall system.

Here is the list of von Mises' short articles (Some of them are excerpts from his books)

Here is the list of von Mises' books

Remembering Ludwig von Mises on his 132nd Birthday

September 29, 2013 will mark the 132nd birthday of my mentor (via his works) and inspiration Ludwig von Mises. 

It has been through the works of Mr. von Mises and the Austrian school of economics who opened my eyes to reality or the truth amidst a world seemingly lobotomized of reason and a world seemingly governed by deception, manipulation, indoctrination, repression, oppression and untruths.

It is interesting to know that Nazi Germany even hunted down Mr. von Mises as his trenchant tirades against inflation and interventionism meant that "both fascists and communists hated him" according to Austrian economist Dr. Richard Ebeling.

Mr. von Mises, narrowly escaped the Gestapo dragnet in Vienna during the German occupation by fleeing to Switzerland. Nonetheless volumes of Mr. Mises work had been captured but luckily enough had not been destroyed and had been recovered in a Moscow archive 1996—decades after the Soviets “liberated” Bohemia.  

The Huffington Post writes of the recovery of the treasure troves of Dr. von Mises work here.

Read Ludwig von Mises’ biography here.

Here is a compilation of Mr. von Mises works at the Mises Institute.

My tribute to Mr. Mises ends with this excerpt from his magnum opus, Human Action (p.239)

Theism and Deism of the Age of Enlightenment viewed the regularity of natural phenomena as an emanation of the decrees of Providence. When the philosophers of the Enlightenment discovered that there prevails a regularity of phenomena also in human action and in social evolution, they were prepared to interpret it likewise as evidence of the paternal care of the Creator of the universe. This was the true meaning of the doctrine of the predetermined harmony as expounded by some economists. The social philosophy of paternal despotism laid stress upon the divine mission of kings and autocrats predestined to rule the peoples. The liberal retorted that the operation of an unhampered market, on which the consumer—i.e., every citizen—is sovereign, brings about more satisfactory results than the decrees of anointed rulers. Observe the functioning of the market system, they said, and you will discover in it too the finger of God

Richard Ebeling: The Case For Freedom and Free markets in the writings of Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek and Ayn Rand

Dr. Richard Ebeling, American libertarian author, former president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and professor of economics, in a recent speech dealt with the works of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek and Ayn Rand as providing for the intellectual and ethical foundations for the case of Freedom and Free markets.  

From Dr. Ebeling at the Northwood University Blog (bold mine)

Three names are widely associated with the cause of human freedom and economic liberty in the 20^thcentury: Friedrich A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Ayn Rand. Indeed, it can be argued that Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (1944) and The Constitution of Liberty (1960), Mises, Socialism ((1936) Human Action(1949), and Rand’s The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957) did more to turn the intellectual tide of opinion away from collectivism in the second half of the twentieth century than any other works that reached out to the informed layman and general public.

Now, in the second decade of the 21st century their enduring influence is seen by the continuing high sales of their books, and the frequency with which all three are referred to in the media and the popular press in the face of the current economic crisis and the concerns about the revival of dangerous statist trends in the United States and other parts of the world.

The Influence of Mises, Hayek, and Rand

In Hayek’s case, his influence has reached inside academia, that bastion of the social engineering mentality in which too many professors, especially in the social sciences, still dream wistfully about society being remade in their own images of “social justice” and political correctness – regardless of the expense in terms of people’s personal and economic liberty.

Hayek’s message of intellectual humility – that there is more to the complexities of the world than any government planning or intervening mind can ever master – has forced some in that academic arena to take seriously the possibility that there may be “limits” to what political paternalism can achieve without undermining the essential institutional foundations of a free and prosperous society.

Mises continues to be recognized as the most original and influential member of the Austrian School of Economics during the greater part of the 20th century. Mises stands out as that unique and original thinker who proved why socialist planning cannot work, that government intervention breeds inescapable distortions and imbalances throughout the market, and how central bank manipulation of money and interest rates sets in motion the booms and busts of the business cycle. The current recession has brought new attention to the Austrian theory of money and economic fluctuations, which was first formulated by Mises in the early decades of the 20th century.

While the academe of philosophers is still not willing to give Ayn Rand the respect and serious attention that others believe she rightly deserves, it is nonetheless true that her novels and non-fiction writings, especially The Virtue of Selfishness (1964) and Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal (1966), continue to capture the interest and imagination of a growing number of students in the halls of higher education in the United States. In other words, her ideas continue to reach out to that potential generation of “new intellectuals” that Rand hoped would emerge to offer a principled and morally grounded defense of individualism and capitalism.

The Common Historical Contexts of Their Time

Hayek, Mises and Rand each made their case for freedom and the political order that accompanies it in their own way. While Mises was born in 1881 and, therefore, was 18 years older than Hayek (who was born in 1899) and nearly a quarter of a century older that Rand (who was born in 1905), there were a number of historical experiences they shared in common, and which clearly helped shape their ideas.

First, they came from a Europe that was deeply shaken by the catastrophic destruction and consequences of the First World War. Both Mises and Hayek saw the horrors of combat and the trauma of military defeat while serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army, as well as experiencing the economic hardships and the threat of socialist revolution in postwar Vienna. Rand lived through the Russian Revolution and Civil War, which ended with the triumph of Lenin’s Bolsheviks and the imposition of a brutal and murderous communist regime; she also experienced “socialism-in-practice” as a student at the University of Petrograd (later Leningrad, now St Petersburg) as the new Marxist order was being imposed on Russian society.

Second, they also experienced the harsh realities of hyperinflation. Rand witnessed the Bolshevik’s intentional destruction of the Russian currency during the Russian Civil War and Lenin’s system of War Communism, which was designed as a conscious attempt to bring about the abolition of the market economy and capitalist “wage-slavery.” In postwar Germany and Austria, Mises and Hayek watched the new socialist-leaning governments in Berlin and Vienna turn the handle of the monetary printing press to fund the welfare statist and interventionist expenditures for instituting their collectivist dreams. In the process, the middle classes of Germany and Austria were decimated and the social fabric of German and Austrian society were radically undermined.

Third, Rand was fortunate enough to escape the living hell of socialism-in-practice in Soviet Russia by being able to come to America in the mid-1920s. But from her new vantage point, she was able to observe the rise and impact of “American-style” collectivism, during the Great Depression and the coming of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s. In Europe, Mises and Hayek watched the rise of fascism in Italy in the 1920s and then the triumph of Hitler and National Socialism in Germany in 1933, the same year that FDR’s New Deal was implemented in the United States. For both Mises and Hayek, the Nazi variation on the collectivist theme not only showed it to be one of the most deadly forms that socialism could take on. It represented, as well, a dark and dangerous “revolt against reason” with the Nazi’s call to the superiority of blood and force over the human mind and rational argumentation.

Their Common Premises on Collectivism and the Free Society

What were among the common premises that Mises, Hayek and Rand shared in the context of the statist reality in which they had lived? Firstly, I would suggest that it clarified conceptual errors and political threats resulting from philosophical and political collectivism. The “nations,” “races,” “peoples” to which the totalitarian collectivists appealed resulted in Mises, Hayek and Rand reminding their readers that these do not exist separate or independent from the individual human beings who make up the membership of these short-hand terms for claimed human associations.  Anything to be understood about such “collectives” of peoples can only realistically and logically begin with an analysis of and an understanding into the nature of the individual human being, and the ideas he may hold about his relationships to others in society.

Furthermore, political collectivism was a dangerous tool in the hands of the ideological demagogues who used the notions of the “people’s will,” or the “nation’s purposes,” or the “society’s needs,” or the “race’s interests,” to assert their claim to a higher insight that justified the right for those with this “special intuitive gift” to guide and rule over others.

Secondly, all three rejected positivism’s denial of the human mind as something real, and as source for knowledge about man and his actions. Mises and Rand, especially, emphasized the importance of man’s use of his reasoning ability to understand and master the world in which he lived, and the importance of reasoned reflection for conceiving rational rules and institutions for a peaceful and prosperous society of free men.  Mises and Rand considered the entire political trend of the 20thcentury to be in the direction of a “revolt against reason.”

Even Hayek, who is sometimes classified as an “anti-rationalist” due to his emphasis on the limits of human reason for designing or intentionally constructing the institutions of society, should also be classified as an advocate of man’s proper use of his reasoning powers when reflecting on man and society. While the phrasing of his arguments sometimes created this confusion, in various places Hayek went out of his way to insist that he was never challenging the centrality of man’s reasoning and rational faculty. Rather, he was reminding central planners and social engineers that one of the important uses of man’s reasoning ability is to understand the limits of what man can and cannot know or hope to do in terms of trying to remake society according to some preconceived design.

Thirdly, all three firmly believed that there was no societal arrangement conceivable for free men and human betterment other than free market capitalism. Only a private property order that respects and protects the right of the individual to his life, liberty, and honestly acquired possessions give people control over their own lives. Only the voluntary associative arrangements of the marketplace minimize the use of force in human relationships. Only the market economy allows each individual the institutional means of being free from the power of the government and its historical patterns of plunder and abuse. And only the market economy gives each individual the latitude to live for himself and use his knowledge and abilities to further his own ends as he best sees fit.

And, finally, Mises, Hayek, and Rand all emphasized the importance of the intellectuals in society in influencing the tone and direction of political, economic, and social ideas and trends. These “second-hand” thinkers of ideas were the driving force behind the emerging and then triumphing collectivist ideas of the 19th and 20th centuries. They were the molders of public opinion who have served as the propagandizers and rationalizers for the concentration of political power and the enslavement and deaths of hundreds of millions of people – people who were indoctrinated about the need for their selfless obedience and sacrifice to those in political power for a “greater good” in the name of some faraway utopia.

The Consequentialist Rationale for Freedom

But where they differed was on the philosophical justification for the free society and the rights of individuals within the social order. Both Mises and Hayek were what today might go under the term “rule utilitarians.” Any action, policy or institution must be evaluated and judged on the basis of its “positive” or “negative” consequences for the achievement of human ends.

However, the benchmark for such evaluation and judgment is not the immediate “positive” or “negative” effects from any action or policy. It must, instead, be placed into a longer-run context of theoretical insight and historical experience to determine whether or not the policy or action and its effects are consistent with the sustainability of the overall institutional order that is judged to be most effective in furthering the long-run possible goals and purposes of the members of society, as a whole.

Thus, the rule utilitarian is concerned with the “moral hazard” arising from an action or policy implemented. That is, will it create “perverse incentives” that results in members of society acting in ways inconsistent with the long-run betterment of their circumstances?

Welfare payments may not only involve a transfer of wealth from the productive “Peters” in society to the unproductive “Pauls.” It may also reduce the motives of the productive members of society to work, save and invest as much as they had or might, due to the disincentive created by the higher taxes to pay for the redistribution. At the same time, such wealth transfers may generate an “entitlement” mentality of having a right to income and wealth without working honestly to earn it. Thus, the “work ethic” is weakened, and a growing number in society may become welfare dependents living off the honest labor of others through the paternalistic transfer hands of the State.

The net effect possibly is to make the society poorer than it otherwise might have been, and therefore making everyone potentially worse off in terms of the longer-run consequences of such policies.

Read the rest here.

I would add the great Murray Rothbard, but contra rule utilitarians Mr. Rothbard was a champion of natural rights based libertarianism

Remembering Ludwig von Mises on his 131st Birthday

My regular followers know how much my perspectives have largely been influenced by the school of economic, political and philosophical ideas and principles inspired by the great Professor Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises and his colleagues and disciples at the Ludwig von Mises Institute where the former is the acknowledged leader.

Although largely unappreciated by the politically brainwashed mainstream. much of Professor von Mises’s views, theories, predictions and warnings are being validated today. Aided by the information age, more and more people are getting to recognize this. 

From Google Trend

Today marks Professor von Mises’ 131st birthday (September 29, 1881- October 10, 1973). 

Professor von Mises set as a personal mission to educate the public from the evils of Socialism.

His life long motto was tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito which comes from Virgil's Aeneid, Book VI; the motto means "do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it."

Here is the great Mises on the struggle against Socialism

Society lives and acts only in individuals; it is nothing more than a certain attitude on their part. Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.

Libertarianism: Political Career and Risks

When society has been lobotomized or programmed into believing that government is a “given”, and that the individual is not only branded as immoral (e.g. greed) but more importantly, nonexistent (e.g. nationalism), then looking for a political career from the standpoint of liberty seems almost close to nil.

But this shouldn’t stop passionate freedom loving disciples from preaching the truth. Austrian economist Bob Wenzel writes,

And that's what libertarians need to know about running for office. It's not about compromising your principles to gain more votes, its not about hiding your true views on taxes and minimum wage laws to gain more votes, it's about running to get the hardcore libertarian message out.

It's about hoping that after you give a speech where you denounce minimum wage laws, all taxes and the local public fire department, that at least one person, maybe two, wander over to you after your speech and tell you that what you said sounded interesting. It's about losing the election, but at the same time advancing the libertarian cause.

In other words, it's okay for a libertarian to run for office, if it's the Ron Paul way. If it's about losing the election but spreading the word. If it's about writing op-eds, appearing in debates and being interviewed on radio about hardcore libertarianism.

Libertarians aren't close to getting elected in most places with just a libertarian message. But the message can be spread. Ron Paul has proved that. If this is done in enough places, enough times, the message can be spread even more, and more people will catch on.

Then some day, perhaps five years from now, perhaps ten, we may hear of people sticking completely to libertarian principle and winning here and winning there. That will be the signal that large numbers of people at that time want liberty and understand what liberty is.

Embracing the principle of freedom confronts mountains of sacrifices and risks, particularly the risk of ostracism and of losing social privileges in the face of massive tentacle of influence by governments in almost every aspect of our lives.

The great Ludwig von Mises sets a shining example of this fight of principle over convenience; Professor Mises sacrificed a glamorous teaching career.

In an encomium, one of the greatest student by Professor Mises, the preeminent dean of the Austrian school Murray Rothbard reveals of the career life of Mises,

But it remains an ineradicable blot on the record of American academia that Mises was never able to find a paid, full-time post in any American university. It is truly shameful that at a time when every third-rate Marxoid refugee was able to find a prestigious berth in academia, that one of the great minds of the twentieth century could not find an academic post. Mises's widow Margit, in her moving memoir about life with Lu, records their happiness and her gratitude that the New York University Graduate School of Business Administration, in 1945, appointed Mises as Visiting Professor teaching one course a term. Mises was delighted to be back at university teaching; but the present writer cannot be nearly as enthusiastic about a part-time post paying the pittance of $2,000 a year. Mises's course was, at first, on "Statism and the Profit Motive," and it later changed to one on "Socialism." This part-time teaching post was renewed until 1949…

Likewise, in the face of Keynesian revolution, the great Mises stuck to his convictions when the rest sold out, again from Professor Rothbard,

It must have been galling to Mises that, in contrast to his shabby treatment at the hands of American academia, favorite former students who had abandoned Misesian doctrines for Keynesianism, but whose only real contributions to economics had come as Misesians, received high and prestigious academic posts. Thus Gottfried Haberler was ensconced as full professor at Harvard, and Fritz Machlup went to John Hopkins and later to Princeton. Oskar Morgenstern, too, landed at Princeton. All of these high academic positions were, of course, paid for by the university

Well, even the soul of American revolution Thomas Paine, known for this famous passage…

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

…had a melancholic-tragic ending.

Author George Smith accounts for Mr. Paine’s demise,

The man who inspired the country to secede from a corrupt state had six people in attendance at his funeral, none of whom were dignitaries.

The struggle for the cause of liberty is a tall order.

But I think the information age will most likely tilt the balance from the dominant political mindset towards liberty.

Quote of the Day: Understanding Classical Liberalism

Liberalism is no religion, no world view, no party of special interests. It is no religion because it demands neither faith nor devotion, because there is nothing mystical about it, and because it has no dogmas. It is no world view because it does not try to explain the cosmos and because it says nothing and does not seek to say anything about the meaning and purpose of human existence. It is no party of special interests because it does not provide or seek to provide any special advantage whatsoever to any individual or any group. It is something entirely different. It is an ideology, a doctrine of the mutual relationship among the members of society and, at the same time, the application of this doctrine to the conduct of men in actual society. It promises nothing that exceeds what can be accomplished in society and through society. It seeks to give men only one thing, the peaceful, undisturbed development of material well-being for all, in order thereby to shield them from the external causes of pain and suffering as far as it lies within the power of social institutions to do so at all. To diminish suffering, to increase happiness: that is its aim.

This is from the great Professor Ludwig von Mises, The Future of Liberalism, in Liberalism in the Classical Tradition

Quote of the Day: Economics is a Display of Abstract Reasoning

Economics, like logic and mathematics, is a display of abstract reasoning. Economics can never be experimental and empirical. The economist does not need an expensive apparatus for the conduct of his studies. What he needs is the power to think clearly and to discern in the wilderness of events what is essential from what is merely accidental.

That’s from the great Ludwig von Mises from his magnum opus Human Action. (hat tip Mises Blog).

Quote of the Day: An Inevitable Unity to Market Phenomena

And it was realized that there is an inevitable unity to market phenomena that even power cannot undermine. It was discovered that in the social arena there is something at work that even the one holding power cannot bend and to which, in achieving his ends, he must conform no differently than in submitting to the laws of nature. In the entire history of human thought and the sciences, there has never been a greater discovery.

That’s from the great Ludwig von Mises, The Myth of the Failure of Capitalism in Volume 2 of the Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises (sourced at the Mises Blog)

Many people carry the insane notion that they can defeat the laws of nature whether in sports, the financial markets, economics or socio-political policies. And the crowd just loves them. Unfortunately nature eventually prevails and exposes the fabled emperor has really no clothes.

At the end of the day, the market system conforms best to the laws of nature.

How Capitalism Brought about Modern Marriage

Contractual rights is the foundation of modern (monogamist) marriage which has been traced to the capitalist roots.

The following excerpt from an article by the great Ludwig von Mises seems as a compelling narrative of the evolution of modern marriage (bold emphasis mine)

Where the principle of violence dominates, polygamy is universal. Each man has as many wives as he can defend. Wives are a form of property, of which it is always better to have more than few. A man endeavors to own more wives, just as he endeavors to own more slaves or cows; his moral attitude is the same, in fact, for slaves, cows, and wives. He demands fidelity from his wife; he alone may dispose of her labor and her body, himself remaining free of any ties whatever. Fidelity in the male implies monogamy. A more powerful lord has the right to dispose also of the wives of his subjects. The much discussed jus primae noctis was an echo of these conditions, of which a final development was the intercourse between father-in-law and daughter-in-law in the "joint family" of the Southern Slavs.

Moral reformers did not abolish polygamy; neither did the church at first combat it. For centuries, Christianity raised no objections to the polygamy of the barbarian kings. Charlemagne kept many concubines. By its nature, polygamy was never an institution for the poor man; the wealthy and the aristocratic could alone enjoy it. But with the latter it became increasingly complex according to the extent to which women entered marriage as heiresses and owners, were provided with rich dowries, and were endowed with greater rights in disposing of the dowry.

Thus monogamy has been gradually enforced by the wife who brings her husband wealth and by her relatives — a direct manifestation of the way in which capitalist thought and calculation has penetrated the family. In order to protect legally the property of wives and their children a sharp line is drawn between legitimate and illegitimate connection and succession. The relation of husband and wife is acknowledged as a contract.

As the idea of contract enters the law of marriage, it breaks the rule of the male, and makes the wife a partner with equal rights. From a one-sided relationship resting on force, marriage thus becomes a mutual agreement; the servant becomes the married wife entitled to demand from the man all that he is entitled to ask from her. Step by step she wins the position in the home which she holds today. Nowadays the position of the woman differs from the position of the man only in so far as their peculiar ways of earning a living differ. The remnants of man's privileges have little importance. They are privileges of honor. The wife, for instance, still bears her husband's name.

This evolution of marriage has taken place by way of the law relating to the property of married persons. Woman's position in marriage was improved as the principle of violence was thrust back, and as the idea of contract advanced in other fields of the law of property it necessarily transformed the property relations between the married couple. The wife was freed from the power of her husband for the first time when she gained legal rights over the wealth which she brought into marriage and which she acquired during marriage, and when that which her husband customarily gave her was transformed into allowances enforceable by law.

Thus marriage, as we know it, has come into existence entirely as a result of the contractual idea penetrating into this sphere of life. All our cherished ideals of marriage have grown out of this idea. That marriage unites one man and one woman, that it can be entered into only with the free will of both parties, that it imposes a duty of mutual fidelity, that a man's violations of the marriage vows are to be judged no differently from a woman's, that the rights of husband and wife are essentially the same — these principles develop from the contractual attitude to the problem of marital life.

No people can boast that their ancestors thought of marriage as we think of it today. Science cannot judge whether morals were once more severe than they are now. We can establish only that our views of what marriage should be are different from the views of past generations and that their ideal of marriage seems immoral in our eyes.

When panegyrists of the good old morality execrate the institution of divorce and separation they are probably right in asserting that no such things existed formerly. The right to cast off his wife which man once possessed in no way resembles the modern law of divorce. Nothing illustrates more clearly the great change of attitude than the contrast between these two institutions.

And when the church takes the lead in the struggle against divorce, it is well to remember that the existence of the modern marriage ideal of monogamy — of husband and wife with equal rights — in the defense of which the church wishes to intervene, is the result of capitalist, and not ecclesiastical, development.

Ludwig von Mises on Some Objections to the Gold Standard

Former IMF chief Economist Simon Johnson raised an objection, at the New York Times Blog, to the gold standard:

And the idea that pegging the value of the dollar or any currency relative to gold leads to financial and economic stability is an illusion. During the 19th century the dollar was freely convertible into gold — except when it wasn’t. There were serious “suspensions” of convertibility about every 10 to 15 years; most of these were the outcome of boom-bust cycles in the private sector and had nothing to do with the government, which had a very limited monetary role before the Civil War…

The gold standard is just a rule and rules are broken by powerful people under all monetary systems. Assuming that this won’t happen in any future arrangement just encourages illusions.

Apparently the great Ludwig von Mises, decades ago, had a retort on what seems as a recycled (or stereotyped) challenge. [bold emphasis mine]

The gold standard is certainly not a perfect or ideal standard. There is no such thing as perfection in human things. But nobody is in a position to tell us how something more satisfactory could be put in place of the gold standard. The purchasing power of gold is not stable. But the very notions of stability and unchangeability of purchasing power are absurd. In a living and changing world there cannot be any such thing as stability of purchasing power. In the imaginary construction of an evenly rotating economy there is no room left for a medium of exchange. It is an essential feature of money that its purchasing power is changing. In fact, the adversaries of the gold standard do not want to make money's purchasing power stable. They want rather to give to the governments the power to manipulate purchasing power without being hindered by an "external" factor, namely, the money relation of the gold standard…

However, the futility of interventionist policies has nothing at all to do with monetary matters. It will be shown later why all isolated measures of government interference with market phenomena must fail to attain the ends sought. If the interventionist government wants to remedy the shortcomings of its first interferences by going further and further, it finally converts its country's economic system into socialism of the German pattern. Then it abolishes the domestic market altogether, and with it money and all monetary problems, even though it may retain some of the terms and labels of the market economy. In both cases it is not the gold standard that frustrates the good intentions of the benevolent authority.

The significance of the fact that the gold standard makes the increase in the supply of gold depend upon the profitability of producing gold is, of course, that it limits the government's power to resort to inflation. The gold standard makes the determination of money's purchasing power independent of the changing ambitions and doctrines of political parties and pressure groups. This is not a defect of the gold standard; it is its main excellence. Every method of manipulating purchasing power is by necessity arbitrary. All methods recommended for the discovery of an allegedly objective and "scientific" yardstick for monetary manipulation are based on the illusion that changes in purchasing power can be "measured." The gold standard removes the determination of cash-induced changes in purchasing power from the political arena. Its general acceptance requires the acknowledgment of the truth that one cannot make all people richer by printing money. The abhorrence of the gold standard is inspired by the superstition that omnipotent governments can create wealth out of little scraps of paper.

It has been asserted that the gold standard too is a manipulated standard. The governments may influence the height of gold's purchasing power either by credit expansion — even if it is kept within the limits drawn by considerations of preserving the redeemability of the money-substitutes — or indirectly by furthering measures that induce people to restrict the size of their cash holdings. This is true. It cannot be denied that the rise in commodity prices that occurred between 1896 and 1914 was to a great extent provoked by such government policies. But the main thing is that the gold standard keeps all such endeavors toward lowering money's purchasing power within narrow limits. The inflationists are fighting the gold standard precisely because they consider these limits a serious obstacle to the realization of their plans.

What the expansionists call the defects of the gold standard are indeed its very eminence and usefulness. It checks large-scale inflationary ventures on the part of governments. The gold standard did not fail. The governments were eager to destroy it, because they were committed to the fallacies that credit expansion is an appropriate means of lowering the rate of interest and of "improving" the balance of trade…

The struggle against gold, which is one of the main concerns of all contemporary governments, must not be looked upon as an isolated phenomenon. It is but one item in the gigantic process of destruction that is the mark of our time. People fight the gold standard because they want to substitute national autarky for free trade, war for peace, totalitarian government omnipotence for liberty.

Mainstream economists still detest the gold standard, which reminds me this quote attributed to Janos Feteke (who I think was the deputy governor of the National Bank of Hungary)

There are about three hundred economists in the world who are against gold, and they think that gold is a barbarous relic - and they might be right. Unfortunately, there are three billion inhabitants of the world who believe in gold

Quote of the Day: Blaming Capitalism

It would be correct to describe this state of affairs in this way: Today many or some groups of business are no longer liberal; they do not advocate a pure market economy and free enterprise, but, on the contrary, are asking for various measures of government interference with business. But it is entirely misleading to say that the meaning of the concept of capitalism has changed and that "mature capitalism"--as the American Institutionalists call it--or "late capitalism"--as the Marxians call it--is characterized by restrictive policies to protect the vested interests of wage earners, farmers, shopkeepers, artisans, and sometimes also of capitalists and entrepreneurs.

The concept of capitalism is as an economic concept immutable; if it means anything, it means the market economy. One deprives oneself of the semantic tools to deal adequately with the problems of contemporary history and economic policies if one acquiesces in a different terminology. This faulty nomenclature becomes understandable only if we realize that the pseudo-economists and the politicians who apply it want to prevent people from knowing what the market economy really is. They want to make people believe that all the repulsive manifestations of restrictive government policies are produced by "capitalism."

The great Ludwig von Mises clarifies and defends what capitalism is all about.

And exactly as Prof von Mises describes, present day detractors equivocate and fudge on the terminology, and importantly, misrepresents on the causation of events. Critics usually point to effects of massive interventionisms, which they impute to as the cause of what for them constitutes as "market failures". They mistakenly imply that incumbent policies have had neutral effects on the markets.

All these signify as vain attempt to mislead people.

Commemorating the 130th Birthday of Ludwig von Mises

Today is the 130th birthday of one of my inspiration and role model: the great Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises…

Quote of the Day: Ludwig von Mises on Fascism

Fascism, as defined by dictionary.com, is a government system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc…, and emphasizing on aggressive nationalism and often racism

In today’s political environment, here and abroad, almost all aspects of civil and economic liberties have been under assault from the gradualist expansion of implicit fascism; think bailouts, QEs, manipulated interest rates, war on commodities, bans on short sales, smoking, anti-smoke belching and etc…

Nevertheless, this prescient block quote from the great Ludwig von Mises written in 1927 runs valid today [Liberalism, The Argument of Fascism, Chapter 1 Section 10]

What distinguishes liberal from Fascist political tactics is not a difference of opinion in regard to the necessity of using armed force to resist armed attackers, but a difference in the fundamental estimation of the role of violence in a struggle for power. The great danger threatening domestic policy from the side of Fascism lies in its complete faith in the decisive power of violence. In order to assure success, one must be imbued with the will to victory and always proceed violently. This is its highest principle. What happens, however, when one's opponent, similarly animated by the will to be victorious, acts just as violently? The result must be a battle, a civil war. The ultimate victor to emerge from such conflicts will be the faction strongest in number. In the long run, a minority -- even if it is composed of the most capable and energetic -- cannot succeed in resisting the majority. The decisive question, therefore, always remains: How does one obtain a majority for one's own party? This, however, is a purely intellectual matter. It is a victory that can be won only with the weapons of the intellect, never by force. The suppression of all opposition by sheer violence is a most unsuitable way to win adherents to one's cause. Resort to naked force -- that is, without justification in terms of intellectual arguments accepted by public opinion -- merely gains new friends for those whom one is thereby trying to combat. In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails.

Fascism can triumph today because universal indignation at the infamies committed by the socialists and communists has obtained for it the sympathies of wide circles. But when the fresh impression of the crimes of the Bolsheviks has paled, the socialist program will once again exercise its power of attraction on the masses. For Fascism does nothing to combat it except to suppress socialist ideas and to persecute the people who spread them. If it wanted really to combat socialism, it would have to oppose it with ideas. There is, however, only one idea that can be effectively opposed to socialism, viz., that of liberalism.

It has often been said that nothing furthers a cause more than creating, martyrs for it. This is only approximately correct. What strengthens the cause of the persecuted faction is not the martyrdom of its adherents, but the fact that they are being attacked by force, and not by intellectual weapons. Repression by brute force is always a confession of the inability to make use of the better weapons of the intellect -- better because they alone give promise of final success. This is the fundamental error from which Fascism suffers and which will ultimately cause its downfall. The victory of Fascism in a number of countries is only an episode in the long series of struggles over the problem of property. The next episode will be the victory of Communism. The ultimate outcome of the struggle, however, will not be decided by arms, but by ideas. It is ideas that group men into fighting factions, that press the weapons into their hands, and that determine against whom and for whom the weapons shall be used. It is they alone, and not arms, that, in the last analysis, turn the scales.

So much for the domestic policy of Fascism. That its foreign policy, based as it is on the avowed principle of force in international relations, cannot fail to give rise to an endless series of wars that must destroy all of modern civilization requires no further discussion. To maintain and further raise our present level of economic development, peace among nations must be assured. But they cannot live together in peace if the basic tenet of the ideology by which they are governed is the belief that one's own nation can secure its place in the community of nations by force alone.

It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.

Intellect versus force, that’s the essence of classical liberalism.

"Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito", this favorite quote of Prof von Mises comes from Vigil which means "do not give into evil but proceed ever more boldly against it".

Hat tip: Cato’s Jason Kuznicki