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.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
The main achievement of economics is that it has provided a theory of peaceful human cooperation. This is why the harbingers of violent conflict have branded it as a dismal science and why this age of wars, civil wars, and destruction has no use for it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Economics offers a framework for understanding how people can collaborate peacefully, which has been mischaracterized by those promoting conflict.
This quote by Ludwig Von Mises emphasizes the positive role of economics in facilitating peaceful cooperation among humans. It suggests that the study of economics, often labeled as a 'dismal science' by its critics, actually lays the groundwork for mutual benefit and harmony, in stark contrast to the violence and chaos that pervade societies embroiled in conflict. The misuse of economic principles by those who favor aggression undermines the peaceful potential inherent in cooperative economic exchange.
Themes
EconomicsPeaceCooperationConflictTheoryScience
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about the role of economics in society, one might quote this to highlight the discipline's importance for fostering peace.
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.
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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.
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The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.
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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.
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Each epoch has found in the Gospels what it sought to find there, and has overlooked what it wished to overlook.
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