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.
Laissez faire does not mean: let soulless mechanical forces operate. It means: let individuals choose how they want to cooperate in the social division of labor and let them determine what the entrepreneurs should produce.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Laissez faire emphasizes individual choice and cooperation in economic activities rather than impersonal mechanistic forces.
This quote by Ludwig Von Mises clarifies the true essence of laissez faire economics. It argues that laissez faire is not a call for unregulated, soulless market forces to dominate; rather, it advocates for the freedom of individuals to make choices in how they collaborate and engage in the division of labor. This approach empowers entrepreneurs to produce goods and services based on the preferences and needs of society, thereby fostering creativity and innovation in the economy.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about economic policy, to illustrate the importance of individual decision-making in markets.
More from Ludwig Von Mises
All quotes →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.
Similar quotes
Peace is a very complicated concept. When the lion gobbles up the lamb and wipes his lips, then there's peace. Well, I ain't for that peace at all.
Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a systems analyst, but it had to start somewhere. This is not science; it is merely metaphor. And the landscape in which the protein "starts" shapes its end as surely as bowls shape water.
Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers . . . great talkers.
The government's not going to create jobs. It doesn't have to. People have to create jobs.
The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations
How long do you remember that it is the Lord who is making you work? But then, by repeatedly analysing like that, you will come to a state when the ego will vanish and in its place the Lord will come in. Then you will be able to say with justice "Thou, Lord, art guarding all my actions from within." But, my friend, if the ego occupies all the space within your heart, where forsooth will there be room enough for the Lord to come in? The Lord is verily absent!