|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Through all the changes in the prevailing system of social
stratification, moral philosophers continued to hold fast to the fundamental
idea of Ciceros doctrine that making money is degrading.
|
Epistemological Problems of Economics
|
p. 194
|
Bourgeoisie
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
A bureaucrat differs from a nonbureaucrat precisely because he
is working in a field in which it is impossible to appraise the result of a
mans effort in terms of money.
|
Bureaucracy
|
p. 53
|
Bureaucracy
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
True, governments can reduce the rate of interest in the short
run. They can issue additional paper money. They can open the way to credit
expansion by the banks. They can thus create an artificial boom and the
appearance of prosperity. But such a boom is bound to collapse soon or late
and to bring about a depression.
|
Omnipotent Government
|
p. 251
|
Business Cycles
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
What is needed for a sound expansion of production is
additional capital goods, not money or fiduciary media. The credit boom is
built on the sands of banknotes and deposits. It must collapse.
|
Human Action
|
p. 559; p. 561
|
Credit
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Lenders of money have been held in odium, at all times and
among all peoples.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 264
|
Creditors
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The endeavors to expand the quantity of money in circulation
either in order to increase the governments capacity to spend or in order to
bring about a temporary lowering of the rate of interest disintegrate all
currency matters and derange economic calculation.
|
Human Action
|
p. 225; p. 224
|
Economic Calculation
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Economic calculation can only take place by means of money
prices established in the market for production goods in a society resting on
private property in the means of production.
|
Socialism
|
p. 123
|
Economic Calculation
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Without the aid of monetary calculation, bookkeeping, and the
computation of profit and loss in terms of money, technology would have had
to confine itself to the simplest, and therefore the least productive,
methods.
|
Epistemological Problems of Economics
|
p. 157
|
Economic Calculation
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
He [a consumer] buys because he believes that to acquire the
merchandise in question will satisfy him better than keeping the money or
spending it for something else.
|
The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science
|
p. 76
|
Exchange
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The valuation of a monetary unit depends not on the wealth of
a country, but rather on the relationship between the quantity of, and demand
for, money. Thus, even the richest country can have a bad currency and the
poorest a good one.
|
On the Manipulation of Money and Credit
|
p. 21
|
Exchange
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Foreign-exchange control is today primarily a device for the
virtual expropriation of foreign investments. It has destroyed the
international capital and money market.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 476
|
Foreign Exchange
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The gold standard has one tremendous virtue: the quantity of
the money supply, under the gold standard, is independent of the policies of
governments and political parties. This is its advantage. It is a form of
protection against spendthrift governments.
|
Economic Policy
|
p. 65
|
Gold Standard
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The gold standard alone makes the determination of moneys
purchasing power independent of the ambitions and machinations of
governments, of dictators, of political parties, and of pressure groups.
|
Planning for Freedom
|
p. 185
|
Gold Standard
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Under the gold standard gold is money and money is gold. It is
immaterial whether or not the laws assign legal tender quality only to gold
coins minted by the government.
|
Human Action
|
p. 425; pp. 428-29
|
Gold Standard
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
. The use of money in a market economy is a praxeologically
necessary fact. That gold, and not something else, is used as money is merely
a historical fact and as such cannot be conceived by catallactics.
|
Human Action
|
p. 468; p. 471
|
Gold Standard
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The return to gold does not depend on the fulfillment of some
material condition. It is an ideological problem. It presupposes only one
thing: the abandonment of the illusion that increasing the quantity of money
creates prosperity.
|
Economic Freedom and Interventionism
|
p. 86
|
Gold Standard
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Both force and money are impotent against ideas.
|
Omnipotent Government
|
p. 210
|
Ideas
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
What people today call inflation is not inflation, i.e., the
increase in the quantity of money and money substitutes, but the general rise
in commodity prices and wage rates which is the inevitable consequence of
inflation.
|
Planning for Freedom
|
p. 79
|
Inflation
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Money, like chocolate on a hot oven, was melting in the
pockets of the people.
|
Economic Policy
|
p. 65
|
Inflation
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Inflation can be pursued only so long as the public still does
not believe it will continue. Once the people generally realize that the
inflation will be continued on and on and that the value of the monetary unit
will decline more and more, then the fate of the money is sealed. Only the
belief, that the inflation will come to a stop, maintains the value of the
notes.
|
On the Manipulation of Money and Credit
|
p. 16
|
Inflation
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Inflationism, however, is not an isolated phenomenon. It is
only one piece in the total framework of politico-economic and
socio-philosophical ideas of our time. Just as the sound money policy of gold
standard advocates went hand in hand with liberalism, free trade, capitalism
and peace, so is inflationism part and parcel of imperialism, militarism,
protectionism, statism and socialism.
|
On the Manipulation of Money and Credit
|
p. 48
|
Inflation
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The pretended solicitude for the nations welfare, for the
public in general, and for the poor ignorant masses in particular was a mere
blind. The governments wanted inflation and credit expansion, they wanted
booms and easy money.
|
Human Action
|
p. 438; p. 441
|
Inflation
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Credit expansion and inflationary increase of the quantity of
money frustrate the common mans attempts to save and to accumulate reserves
for less propitious days.
|
Human Action
|
p. 834; p. 838
|
Inflation
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
There has been no generation that has not grumbled about the
expensive times that it lives in. But the fact that everything is becoming
dearer simply means that the objective exchange value of money is falling.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 177
|
Inflation
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
American authors or scientists are prone to consider the
wealthy businessman as a barbarian, as a man exclusively intent upon making
money.
|
The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality
|
p. 20
|
Intellectuals
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Public opinion always wants easy money, that is, low interest
rates.
|
A Critique of Interventionism
|
p. 163
|
Interest rate
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Imports are in fact paid for by exports and not by money.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 286
|
International Trade
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Every step that leads away from private ownership of the means
of production and the use of money is a step away from rational economic
activity.
|
Socialism
|
p. 102
|
Interventionism
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
It is the typical policy of aprs nous le dluge. Lord Keynes,
the champion of this policy, says: In the long run we are all dead. But
unfortunately nearly all of us outlive the short run. We are destined to
spend decades paying for the easy money orgy of a few years.
|
Omnipotent Government
|
p. 252
|
Keynes
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Money is regarded as the cause of theft and murder, of
deception and betrayal. Money is blamed when the prostitute sells her body
and when the bribed judge perverts the law. It is money against which the
moralist declaims when he wishes to oppose excessive materialism.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 111
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Money is merely the commonly used medium of exchange; it plays
only an intermediary role. .
|
Planning for Freedom
|
p. 66
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
For two hundred years the governments have interfered with the
markets choice of the money medium. Even the most bigoted tatists do not
venture to assert that this interference has proved beneficial.
|
Human Action
|
p. 419; p. 422
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Fiat money is a money consisting of mere tokens which can
neither be employed for any industrial purposes nor convey a claim against
anybody.
|
Human Action
|
p. 426; p. 429
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
No technological computation and calculation would be possible
in an environment that would not employ a generally used medium of exchange,
money.
|
The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science
|
p. 127
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Money is nothing but a medium of exchange and it completely
fulfills its function when the exchange of goods and services is carried on
more easily with its help than would be possible to means of barter.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 31
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Where the free exchange of goods and services is unknown,
money is not wanted.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 41
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The simple statement, that money is a commodity whose economic
function is to facilitate the interchange of goods and services, does not
satisfy those writers who are interested rather in the accumulation of
material than in the increase of knowledge.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
pp. 4647
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Money has thus become an aid that the human mind is no longer
able to dispense with in making economic calculations.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 62
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Money has no utility other than that arising from the
possibility of obtaining other economic goods in exchange for it.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 118
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The valuation of the monetary unit depends not upon the wealth
of the country, but upon the ratio between the quantity of money and the
demand for it, so that even the richest country may have a bad currency and
the poorest country a good one.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 278
|
Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
If it were really possible to substitute credit expansion
(cheap money) for the accumulation of capital goods by saving, there would
not be any poverty in the world.
|
Planning for Freedom
|
p. 190
|
Money Supply
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
If you increase the quantity of money, you bring about the
lowering of the purchasing power of the monetary unit.
|
Economic Policy
|
p. 66
|
Money Supply
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The quantity of money available in the whole economy is always
sufficient to secure for everybody all that money does and can do.
|
Human Action
|
p. 418; p. 421
|
Money Supply
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
No increase in the welfare of the members of a society can
result from the availability of an additional quantity of money.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 102
|
Money Supply
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
No nation need fear at any time to have less money than it
needs.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
pp. 208-09
|
Money Supply
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
In all countries where inflation has been rapid, it has been
observed that the decrease in the value of the money has occurred faster than
the increase in its quantity.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 259
|
Money Supply
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The entrepreneurs who approach banks for loans are suffering
from shortage of capital; it is never shortage of money in the proper sense
of the word.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 349
|
Money Supply
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Money, Method, and the Market Process, p. 282
|
Human Action
|
p. 95; p. 95
|
planned economy
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The money prices of today are linked with those of yesterday
and before, and with those of tomorrow and after.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 130
|
Purchasing Power
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
An increase in the purchasing power of money is
disadvantageous to the debtor and advantageous to the creditor; a decrease in
its purchasing power has the contrary significance.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 229
|
Purchasing Power
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound
money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the
protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of
governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political
constitutions and bills of rights.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 454
|
Sound Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Thus the sound-money principle has two aspects. It is
affirmative in approving the markets choice of a commonly used medium of
exchange. It is negative in obstructing the governments propensity to meddle
with the currency system.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 455
|
Sound Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
There cannot be stable money within an environment dominated
by ideologies hostile to the preservation of economic freedom.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 480
|
Sound Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
Sound money still means today what it meant in the nineteenth
century: the gold standard.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 480
|
Sound Money
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The idea that changes in the purchasing power of money may be
measured is scientifically untenable.
|
On the Manipulation of Money and Credit
|
p. 88
|
Statistics
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
It is not possible even to measure variations in the
purchasing power of money.
|
The Theory of Money and Credit
|
p. 257
|
Statistics
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
The Welfare State with its methods of easy money, credit
expansion and undisguised inflation continually takes bites out of all claims
payable in units of the nations legal tender.
|
Liberty and Property
|
p. 25
|
Welfare
|
|
Ludwig von Mises
|
All present-day governments are fanatically committed to an
easy money policy.
|
Human Action
|
p. 570; p. 572
|
Monetary Policy
|
|
|
