The Austrian Case for the Free Market Process
Ludwig Von Mises:
Capitalism does not destroy itself. People wish to abolish it because they expect greater benefits from socialism and interventionism.
State ownership of labor changes the principle ‘he who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat’ to ‘he who doesn’t obey, doesn’t eat.’
All rational action is economic; all economic activity is rational action; all rational action is individual action. Only the individual thinks, only the individual reasons, only the individual acts.
The more extensive markets become, the more roundabout the stages of production become. Goods like cars will require well-developed production around steel, rubber, semiconductors, etc. that extends all around the world. Open market pricing is the only way to rationally approach the production of such higher order goods. Every step away from private ownership and production is a step away from rational pricing.
What separates man from animals is man adjusts his behavior deliberately.
Society does not think—it is always the individual.
Majority rule will use the vehicle of democracy to selfishly impose their will over the minority and often deny minorities the same rights the majority used to exercise their power over them in the first place.
Laws against drugs lend to the notion it’s the government’s job to protect the individual from his own foolishness, in which case there is no reason to stop them from protecting the individual from his own ‘foolish’ thoughts, from reading ‘undesirable’ books, or from eating ‘undesirable’ foods. It completely undermines the sovereignty of the individual.
Friedrich Hayek:
Money and credit expansion lead to a misdirection of capital and this is the cause of recessions. These expansions don’t flow over the economy evenly and upset the intrinsic pricing conditions.
Intervention breeds more intervention and increasingly suppresses natural market activity while selecting for more bureaucracy.
While democracy seeks equality through liberty, socialism seeks equality through restraint and servitude.
Socialism necessarily requires someone to decide who gets what and how and that decision is always left to the supreme leader, making every socialistic regime a dictatorship in nature.
Man cannot acquire the full knowledge that would make mastery possible. We can, however, create an environment conducive to successful outcomes.
Evolution is an adaptation to the unknown. To plan one’s evolution would be to end evolution itself. The pupil cannot teach the teacher.
The markets are constantly changing and never fully reach an equilibrium. They must constantly and dynamically adjust to the countless variables within them by addressing the problems expressed through free and open pricing.