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by John Bryan
on 3/10/2021
from South Carolina
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Von Mises shows the vast improvements in the standard of living over the last few centuries were the result of laissez-faire capitalism. The improvements in production helped the workers more than the producers, as capitalism led to mechanization of production and that the products were mass produced for mass markets.
Capitalism replaced a time of shortages and hunger, caused by high taxes, trade restrictions, and other interferences with human action. These interferences by monarchs, noblemen, clergy, and guilds benefitted themselves, at the expense of everyone else.
These benefits have been ignored by some. Dissatisfied people say capitalism falls short of an imaginary perfect state of society, where there is plenty and everyone is equal. Equality under the law in a competitive economy means that some people will be more prosperous than others. Those others can either acknowledge their shortcomings or blame the system and imagine that they were the victims of evil connivance. |
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by swtmlejm
on 2/10/2018
from 20
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by zensquirrel
on 1/16/2011
from West Virginia
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"A free press can only exist where there is private control of the means of production" - yet why is there so much resentment against capitalism expressed where there is freedom of the press? Mises explores many areas where this is the case, and why, including some I hadn't considered before such as detective fiction. Somewhat in the same vein as Eric Hoffer, Mises cuts across ideological boundaries and transcends conventional wisdom. As much a work of sociology as economics, don't expect cliches here but lots of food for thought. This is a good place to start for someone new to Mises, and a good book to go to next for those who have read Hoffer. |
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by Octobox
on 6/8/2010
from California
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Capitalism was coined by Karl Marx - he created and defined the word.
Capitalism (to Marx) meant "economic-feudalism"
---The wedding of Big Industry with Big Gov't
---The need for the extension of and protection of slave-property (necessitated Big Gov't)
---The need to drive Indians off their land, to kill them in mass numbers, and to drive them to Reservations again necessitated Big Gov't)
---Ownership during Marx critique was based on currency manipulation (zero free-market era)
---The wealth of the industrialist was not based on a proper reflection of consumer-sovereignty.
---Just because Marx was wrong in other areas does not mean we should start a perpetual intellectual war based on the hijacking of his term.
Economic-Individualism is not "capitalism" it is a "free-market" thats why most Austrians will throw the caveat "free-market" capitalism as a prefix.
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by Abhimanyu Jha
on 5/17/2010
from India
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I am a first generation entrepreneur, just received our second round of funding. I think...
Mises may be right about by 10 %
For those who want to know better, go to 2 different areas of study
1. Evolutionary Biology on Human Morality (J Haidt's SIM theory, 2001)
Nature has evolved in us five sense of morality of which Conservatives (in American sense) have their moral sense distributed around all 5 moral senses. Liberals, have only two heightened moral senses: Care/Harm and Justice/Fairness. Many socialists are simply people to whom immediate harm to poor people through Capitalism causes them enough moral anxiety to override for them any long-term benefit that Capitalism may have. Books like these will only infuriate them
2. Capitalism does enough harm to itself when it doesn't evolve good enough mechanisms to prevent rogue capitalists (who destroy instead of create value and make life difficult for genuine entrepreneurs)from fudging, fooling and harming the system (Taleb,Black Swan) |
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