Quotes from book
Human Action

Human Action
Ludwig von Mises

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics is a work by the Austrian economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises. Widely considered Mises' magnum opus, it presents the case for laissez-faire capitalism based on praxeology, or rational investigation of human decision-making. It rejects positivism within economics. It defends an a priori epistemology and underpins praxeology with a foundation of methodological individualism and laws of apodictic certainty. Mises argues that the free-market economy not only outdistances any government-planned system, but ultimately serves as the foundation of civilization itself.

Ludwig von Mises photo

“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

Source: Human Action (1949), Chapter XX: Interest, Credit Expansion, The Trade Cycle, § 8 : The Monetary or Circulation Theory of the Trade Cycle

Ludwig von Mises photo

“People do not cooperate under the division of labor because they love or should love one another. They cooperate because this best serves their own interests. Neither love nor charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

Human Action (1949)

Ludwig von Mises photo

“…racial hatred is not a natural phenomenon innate in man. It is the product of ideologies. But even if such a thing as a natural and inborn hatred between various races existed, it would not render social cooperation futile and would not invalidate Ricardo's theory of association. Social cooperation has nothing to do with personal love or with a general commandment to love one another. People do not cooperate under the division of labor because they love or should love one another. They cooperate because this best serves their own interests. Neither love nor charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

Part 2, VIII.84
Human Action (1949)

Ludwig von Mises photo

“If one takes pleasure in calling the gold standard a "barbarous relic," one cannot object to the application of the same term to every historically determined institution. Then the fact that the British speak English — and not Danish, German, or French — is a barbarous relic too, and every Briton who opposes the substitution of Esperanto for English is no less dogmatic and orthodox than those who do not wax rapturous about the plans for a managed currency.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

The Gold Standard http://mises.org/daily/4153 - LvMI, excerpt from chapter 17 of Human Action
Human Action (1949)

Ludwig von Mises photo

“A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

1963 edition, p. 680
Human Action (1949)

Ludwig von Mises photo

“If historical experience could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

Source: Human Action (1949), Chapter XV. The Market, § 4 The Scope and Method of Catallactics

Ludwig von Mises photo

“Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment. Neither is value in words and doctrines, it is reflected in human conduct. It is not what a man or groups of men say about value that counts, but how they act.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

Human Action (1949)

Similar authors

Ludwig von Mises photo
Ludwig von Mises 62
austrian economist 1881–1973
Friedrich Hayek photo
Friedrich Hayek 79
Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economic…
Stefan Zweig photo
Stefan Zweig 106
Austrian writer
Elfriede Jelinek photo
Elfriede Jelinek 50
Austrian writer
Jan Tinbergen photo
Jan Tinbergen 21
Dutch economist
Thomas J. Sargent photo
Thomas J. Sargent 10
American economist
Paul A. Samuelson photo
Paul A. Samuelson 47
American economist
John Maynard Keynes photo
John Maynard Keynes 122
British economist
John Hicks photo
John Hicks 14
British economist
Theodore Schultz photo
Theodore Schultz 15
American economist