Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Majoritarianism

Why should either two men live at the discretion of three, or three at the discretion of two. Both propositions are absurd from a reasonable point of view. If being a slave and owning a slave are both wrong relations, what different does it make whether there are a million slave owners and one slave, or one slave owner and a million slaves? Do robbery and murder cease to be what they are if done by ninety-nine percent of the population?
Source: Auberon Herbert, Unsourced
Taken From: Mises.org, Nov  16, 2011

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Economics and Reality

Economics deals with real man, weak and subject to error as he is, not with ideal beings, omniscient and perfect as only gods could be.
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 4, Section 3, The Scale of Needs, 1949

Monday, November 28, 2011

Democratic Majoritarianism

Whatever the system of government may be, the foundation upon which it is built and rests is always the opinion of those ruled that to obey and to be loyal to this government better serves their own interests than insurrection and the establishment of another regime. The majority has the power to do away with an unpopular government and uses this power whenever it becomes convinced that its own welfare requires it.  In the long run there is no such thing as an unpopular government.
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 2, A Critique of the Holistic and Metaphysical View of Society, 1949

Sunday, November 27, 2011

On Success

If we followed a rich person around all day, we’d eventually say, no wonder he’s successful, look at EVERYTHING he does.
Source: Dan Kennedy, Unsourced
Taken From: InternetIndependence.com, The One Thing You Need To Do, Oct 10, 2011

Saturday, November 26, 2011

On Human Foreknowledge

Whatever the system of government may be, the foundation upon which it is built and rests is always the opinion of those ruled that to obey and to be loyal to this government better serves their own interests than insurrection and the establishment of another regime. The majority has the power to do away with an unpopular government and uses this power whenever it becomes convinced that its own welfare requires it.  In the long run there is no such thing as an unpopular government
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 6, Section 1, Uncertainty and Acting, 1949

Friday, November 25, 2011

Traditionalism

For the core of traditionalism is not real historical facts, but an opinion about them, however mistaken, and a will to believe things to which the authority of ancient origin is attributed.
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 9, Section 3, The Role of Ideas: Might, 1949

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thanksgiving

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. 
Source: Cicero, Pro Plancio 54 B.C.
Taken From: Early to Rise Newsletter, 11/24/2011

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

On False Dogma

Hence, people concluded, the gain of one man is the damage of another; no man profits but by the loss of others. 
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 24, Section 1, Harmony and Conflict of Interests: The Ultimate Source of Profit and Loss on the Market, 1949

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Executioners

It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.
Source: Albert Camus (As quoted in Howard Zinn's The People's History)
Taken From: Antiwar.com Quotes

Monday, November 21, 2011

On Utopia

After the philosophers had abandoned the search for the absolute, the utopians took it up. They weave dreams about the perfect state. They do not realize that the state, the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion, is an institution to cope with human imperfection and that its essential function is to inflict punishment upon minorities in order to protect majorities against the detrimental consequences of certain actions. With "perfect" men there would not be any need for compulsion and coercion. But utopians do not pay heed to human nature and the inalterable conditions of human life.
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 2, Section 11, The Limitations on Praxeological Concepts, 1949

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Duty

What I did was merely my duty.  Disobeying the laws of the time was just the normal thing to do.
Source: Andree Geulen-Herscovici
Taken From:  Restoring the Republic with Truth and Fearlessness, Karen Kwiatkowski, June 6th 2001


About the Source, taken from the above article:Andree Geulen-Herscovici, an 86-year-old Belgian schoolteacher was recognized by Israel for saving 300 children from the Nazis. In 1942, she witnessed a Gestapo raid on the school. She then joined an underground rescue organization, and for more than two years, she quietly worked with other likeminded people to save these Jewish children from an evil state that would have seen their lives destroyed.
During the ceremony, she said the above.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

On Value

Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment.
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 4, Section 2, The Scale of Value, 1949

Friday, November 18, 2011

On the Instinct of Aggression and Destruction

One must not tell the masses: Indulge in your urge for murder; it is genuinely human and best serves your well-being. One must tell them: If you satisfy your thirst for blood, you must forego many other desires. You want to eat, to drink, to live in fine homes, to clothe yourselves, and a thousand other things which only society can provide. You cannot have everything, you must choose. The dangerous life and the frenzy of sadism may please you, but they are incompatible with the security and plenty which you do not want to miss either.
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 8, Human Society: The Instinct of Aggression and Destruction, 1949

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Extraordinary

The world does not reward average people well so I will be extraordinary.
Source: Ted Nicholas, Unsourced

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Chaos v Order

Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. Chaos always defeats order because it is better organized.
Source: Terry Pratchet, Ly Tin Wheedle in Discworld, 1994
Taken From: Butler Schaffer, A Cost/Benefit Analysis of the Human Spirit; Speech, 3/15/2003

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Society

Society, ... always involves men acting in cooperation with other men in order to let all participants attain their own ends.
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 7, Human Society: The Great Society, 1949

Monday, November 14, 2011

On Society

Society is joint action and cooperation in which each participant sees the other partner's success as a means for the attainment of his own.
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 7, Human Society: The Great Society, 1949

Sunday, November 13, 2011

On the Origins of Social Cooperation

Neither love not charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict.
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 6, Human Society: The Individual Within Society, 1949

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Reciprocity

Second, the reciprocal performances of the parties must in some sense be equal in value…. We cannot here speak of an exact identity, for it makes no sense at all to exchange, say, a book or idea in return for exactly the same book or idea. The bond of reciprocity unites men, not simply in spite of their differences but because of their differences….
Source: Lon L. Fuller, The Morality of Law, pp. 23–24, 1964
Taken From: Bruce Benson, The Enterprise of Customary Law, 6/29/2007

Friday, November 11, 2011

Rent a Cop

As for the “rent-a-cops” who serve on the Jerry Springer show, is there any doubt that they are far superior to any public alternatives when it comes to breaking up a fight at the exact point when the combatants are appropriately half undressed?
Source: Walter Block, The Privatization of Roads & Highways, 2009, Pg 252

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Economic History

It is impossible to understand the history of economic thought if one does not pay attention to the fact that economics as such is a challenge to the conceit of those in power. An economist can never be a favorite of autocrats and demagogues. With them he is always the mischief-maker, and the more they are inwardly convinced that his objections are well founded, the more they hate him.
Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 2, The Procedure of Economics, 1949

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Debt-oholism

If we can solve the debt problem by raising the debt ceiling then we should be able to solve drunk driving by raising the blood alcohol limit.
Source: John Jolly, Aug 16th, 2011

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

On Population Control

[A] horrific notion was “the official policies that made it acceptable to hand out food aid to famine victims only if the women agreed to be sterilized.”
Source: Fred Pearce, Fatal Misconception by Matthew Connelly. The New Scientist: May 21, 2008:
Taken From: New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship: The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part3

Monday, November 7, 2011

Utilty is

Utility is a subjective phenomenon, rooted in individual preference. There are no units with which to measure utility, a fact that appears to be no more than a slight annoyance to those who would measure it.
Source: Walter Block, The Privatization of Roads & Highways, 2009, Pg 129

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Darwinism in Reverse

Dominic Lawson, writing a review of Connelly’s book for The Sunday Times, explained that: the population-control movement was bankrolled by America's biggest private fortunes - the Ford family foundation, John D Rockefeller III, and Clarence Gamble (of Procter & Gamble). These gentlemen shared not just extreme wealth but a common anxiety: the well-to-do and clever (people like them, obviously) were now having much smaller families than their ancestors, but the great unwashed - Chinamen! Indians! Negroes! - were reproducing themselves in an irresponsible manner. What they feared was a kind of Darwinism in reverse - the survival of the unfittest.
Source: Dominic Lawson, Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population by Matthew Connelly. The Sunday Times: May 18, 2008:
Taken From: New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship: The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part3

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Totalitarianism

You know, I know something about totalitarianism.  I have been a totalitarian ruler.  And I hate to admit, it was a great job while it lasted.
Source: Eduard Shevardnadze, Former Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union and former President of the Republic of Georgia
Taken from: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008

Friday, November 4, 2011

On Population Control

In 1969 Robert McNamara, then president of the World Bank, said he was reluctant to finance health care "unless it was very strictly related to population control, because usually health facilities contributed to the decline of the death rate, and thereby to the population explosion."
Source: Review, Horrid History. The Economist: May 24, 2008
Taken From: New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship: The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part3

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Sentimental Humanitarianism

Is not man the first thing to be considered? it will be asked.  Is he not to be given preference over abstract rights, privileges, and so forth?  What this question fails to see is that man's egotism renders impossible that kind of organization which would allow him to prosper to a degree.  When he puts himself first in this sense, the victory is Pyrrhic.  The only way to give him anything that will last is to place him in a structure where opportunity and ability may meet.  This cannot be done by considering egotistic demands first; such shortsightedness destroys the supporting structure.  Thus sentimental humanitarianism, ignorant of fundamental realities but ever attentive to desires, wrecks society.
Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

On the Fun Factor

... the prospects for liberty have nothing to do with my own commitment to the process of trying to obtaining it. That is, I am going to keep trying, at exactly the same pace, no matter what the prospects are.  My reasoning has little to do with the likelihood of success. I do it because I think it’s my moral obligation to do it, because I want to pass onto the next generation the flag, or the torch or the banner that’s been passed onto me, and because it is just so much fun.
Source: Walter Block, The Privatization of Roads & Highways, 2009, Pg 417

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Equality

When the rule of equality [reigns] ... no one knows where he belongs.  Because he has been assured that he is "just as good as anybody else," he is likely to suspect that he is getting less than his deserts.
Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948