“All rational action is economic. All economic activity is rational action. All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.”

Part II : The Economics of a Socialist Community, § I : The Economics of an Isolated Socialist Community, Ch. 5 : The Nature of Economic Activity, p. 97 http://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/msS3.html#Part%20II,Ch.5
Socialism (1922)
Source: Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 8, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All rational action is economic. All economic activity is rational action. All rational action is in the first place in…" by Ludwig von Mises?
Ludwig von Mises photo
Ludwig von Mises 62
austrian economist 1881–1973

Related quotes

John R. Commons photo
Terry Goodkind photo

“People use democracy as a free-floating abstraction disconnected from reality. Democracy in and of itself is not necessarily good. Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action.
All men have the right to live their own life. Democracy must be rooted in a rational philosophy that first and foremost recognizes the right of an individual.”

Terry Goodkind (1948) American novelist

Q&A page at the Terry Goodkind Official Site http://www.prophets-inc.com/communicate/q_and_a.html
Context: People use democracy as a free-floating abstraction disconnected from reality. Democracy in and of itself is not necessarily good. Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action.
All men have the right to live their own life. Democracy must be rooted in a rational philosophy that first and foremost recognizes the right of an individual. A few million Imperial Order men screaming for the lives of a much smaller number of people in the New World may win a democratic vote, but it does not give them the right to those lives, or make their calls for such killing right.
Democracy is not a synonym for justice or for freedom. Democracy is not a sacred right sanctifying mob rule. Democracy is a principle that is subordinate to the inalienable rights of the individual.

Immanuel Kant photo

“In man (as the only rational creature on earth) those natural capacities which are directed to the use of his reason are to be fully developed only in the race, not in the individual.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Second Thesis
Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View (1784)

Herbert Spencer photo

“Influences of various kinds conspire to increase corporate action and decrease individual action.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

The Man versus the State (1884), The Coming Slavery
Context: Influences of various kinds conspire to increase corporate action and decrease individual action. And the change is being on all sides aided by schemers, each of whom thinks only of his pet plan and not at all of the general reorganization which his plan, joined with others such, are working out. It is said that the French Revolution devoured its own children. Here, an analogous catastrophe seems not unlikely. The numerous socialistic changes made by Act of Parliament, joined with the numerous others presently to be made, will by-and-by be all merged in State-socialism—swallowed in the vast wave which they have little by little raised.
"But why is this change described as 'the coming slavery'?," is a question which many will still ask. The reply is simple. All socialism involves slavery.

“Commitment is a state of being in which an individual becomes bound by his actions and through this actions to beliefs that sustain his activities and his own involvement.”

Gerald R. Salancik (1943–1996) American organizational theorist

Gerald R. Salancik (1982), "Attitude-behavior consistencies as social logics." Consistency in social behavior: The Ontario symposium. Vol. 2. 1982. p. 207

Jay Nordlinger photo

“Individuals are responsible for their actions. And yet . . .No man is an island. We are all subject to influences, good and bad.”

Jay Nordlinger (1963) American journalist

"Thoughts on El Paso" https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/thoughts-on-el-paso/ (August 2019), National Review
2010s

John R. Commons photo

“The actual participants in industry under individualism are prompted to action by”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Property (1935)
Context: The actual participants in industry under individualism are prompted to action by the following combination of incentives: desire for an income, desire for a higher income, desire for security, satisfaction received from shouldering responsibility or from wielding power, the joy of participation in creative activity, and the desire for applause and prestige.... And all these motivations may be conserved and strengthened under socialism.

Related topics