Skip to content

Socialism as a universal mode of production is impracticable because it is impossible to make economic calculations within a socialist system. The choice for mankind is not between two economic systems. It is between capitalism and chaos.

— Ludwig von Mises

Another quote →

Topics

Socialism

More quotes by Ludwig von Mises

Inflation is an increase in the quantity of money without a corresponding increase in the demand for money, i.e., for cash holdings.

The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate.

The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science (1962)

In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails.

Liberalism (1927)

Repression by brute force is always a confession of the inability to make use of the better weapons of the intellect — better because they alone give promise of final success.

Liberalism (1927)

The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it.

The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science (1962)

All Ludwig von Mises quotes →

You may also like

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.

Martin Luther King Jr.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Winston Churchill

In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated.

George Orwell

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ludwig von Mises (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.