Will > Recent Status Updates

"Competition leads ... to large scale production with its tendency to make many small profits and with its high degree of economy, since the smaller the profit on each unit the more dangerous becomes every uneconomic waste, and the brisker the competition the less possible becomes an unthinking continuation of business according to old-established methods."
Page 225

"Economizing individuals strive to better their economic positions as much as possible. To this end they engage in economic activity in general. And to this end also, whenever it can be attained by means of trade, they exchange goods. Prices are only incidental manifestations of these activities, symptoms of an economic equilibrium between the economies of individuals."
Page 191

"According to whether the importance of the given satisfaction to us, in a case such as this, is greater or smaller, the value of the particular good to us will be greater or smaller." Page 129

"Nor does the fact that a thing is a product of labor by itself necessarily result in its having goods-character, let alone economic character. Hence the labor expended in the production of labor expended in the production of labor a good cannot be criterion of economic character."
Page 102

"Experience tells us that many goods on which no labor was expended display economic character whenever they are available in quantities that do not meet our requirements."
Page 102

"In towns situated on rivers with more water than is wanted by the inhabitants for the satisfaction of their needs. In virgin forests, everyone fetches unhindered the quantity of timber he needs. And everyone admits as much light and air into his house as he thinks proper. This communism is as naturally founded upon a non-economic relationship as property is founded upon one that is economic."
Page 100-101

"Bureaucratic regulatory devices may compensate for loss of income; they cannot compensate for loss of personal choice, freedom, dignity, and self-respect."
p. 96

"Principles provide an orientation, not a path; a compass, not a map."
p. 88

"The work of a crowd is always inferior, whatever its nature, to that of an isolated individual."

"A crowd is a servile flock that is incapable of ever doing without a master."

"In spite of all scientific demonstrations it continues on the increase. Its principal strength lies in the fact that it is championed by minds sufficiently ignorant of things as they are in reality to venture boldly to promise mankind happiness."

"Not truth, but error has always been the chief factor in the evolution of nations, and the reason why socialism is so powerful today is that it constitutes the last illusion that is still vital."

"Peoples are governed by their character, and all institutions which are not intimately modelled on that character merely represent a borrowed garment, a transitory disguise."

"Peoples are governed by their character, and all institutions which are not intimately modelled on that character merely represent a borrowed garment, a transitory disguise."

"It is precisely crowds that cling the most tenaciously to traditional ideas and oppose their being changed with the most obstinacy."

:Intolerance and fanaticism are the necessary accompaniments of the religious sentiment. They are inevitable displayed by those who believe themselves in possession of the secret of earthly or eternal happiness. These two characteristics are to be found in all men grouped together when they are inspired by a conviction of any kind."

"To know the art of impressing the imagination of crowds is to know at the same time the art of governing them."

"Many have argued that capitalism does not offer a satisfactory moral message. But that is like saying that calculus does not contain carbohydrates, amino acids, or other essential nutrients. Everything fails by irrelevant standards. Yet no one regards this as making calculus invalid or illegitimate." p. 207