Rick Newman on socialism, Trump-style

Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders applauded Trump’s plan to nationalize Intel and other chipmakers.  Sanders is the same guy who co-authored the Green New Deal, which would have entailed a government takeover of the transportation and energy sectors for many dubious reasons, including promoting “justice and equity” and “repairing historic oppression” of certain ethnic groups.  Trump’s motivation is obviously different, but at a certain point, socialist central planning and Trump’s attempted hostile takeover of capitalism start to look like the same thing.  Stock buyers beware. 

~ Rick Newman, "This week in Trumponomics: POTUS is on an investment spree," Yahoo!Finance, August 23, 2025

 

Ludwig von Mises on socialism

Socialism cannot be realized because it is beyond human power to establish it as a social system.  The choice is between capitalism and chaos.  The 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.  To stress this point is the task of economics as it is the task of biology and chemistry to teach that potassium cyanide is not a nutriment but a deadly poison. 

~ Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, p. 680

Friedrich Hayek on how socialism threatens civilization

The demands of socialism are not moral conclusions derived from the traditions that formed the extended order that made civilisation possible.  Rather, they endeavour to overthrow these traditions by a rationally designed moral system whose appeal depends on the instinctual appeal of its promised consequences.  They assume that, since people had been able to generate some system of rules coordinating their efforts, they must also be able to design an even better and more gratifying system.  But if humankind owes its very existence to one particular rule-guided form of conduct of proven effectiveness, it simply does not have the option of choosing another system merely for the sake of the apparent pleasantness of its immediately visible effects.  The dispute between the market order and socialism is no less than a matter of survival.  To follow socialist morality would destroy much of present humankind and impoverish much of the rest.

~ Friedrich Hayek, The Fatal Conceit

Kevin Duffy on capitalism, socialism and morality

With capitalism, morality is imperative.  With socialism, morality is an impediment.

~ Kevin Duffy

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn on socialism vs. capitalism

Socialism... has always been a "clear, but false idea."  A free market economy, on the other hand, is far more complex and cannot be explained in a nutshell.  In the political arena it competes poorly with the notion of collective ownership and central planning —until the latter’s bankruptcy is proved in practice.

~ Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, "Portrait of an Evil Man: Karl Marx," The Freeman, September 1973, pp. 657-665

Jonathan Newman on how Ludwig von Mises debunked socialism

Mises destroyed socialism this way: Without ownership, there is no exchange.  Without exchange, there are no prices.  Without prices, there is no economic calculation.  Without economic calculation, production decisions are made in the dark.  When that happens, basic needs go unmet.

~ Jonathan Newman, tweet, July 6, 2021

Kevin Duffy on the willingness of the young to abandon time-tested institutions

Capitalism lifted man out of the Malthusian trap circa 1800 and created the hockey stick of human prosperity, yet many – especially the young – are ready to risk it all for a new form of economic organization based upon fuzzy concepts like “fairness” and “equality.”  (This is technically an old idea which has failed countless times, but we should never allow details to get in the way of progress!) 

While we’re at it, the family originated between 100,000 and two million years ago.  Time for a replacement, say the cultural Marxists.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Neomania Revisited," The Coffee Can Portfolio, April 26, 2021

George Watson on George Orwell's views of capitalism vs. socialism in 1940

By the outbreak of world war in 1939 the idea that Hitler was any sort of socialist was almost wholly dead. One may salute here an odd but eminent exception. Writing as a committed socialist just after the fall of France in 1940, in The Lion and the Unicorn, Orwell saw the disaster as a "physical debunking of capitalism", it showed once and for all that "a planned economy is stronger than a planless one", though he was in no doubt that Hitler's victory was a tragedy for France and for mankind. The planned economy had long stood at the head of socialist demands; and National Socialism, Orwell argued, had taken from socialism "just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes". Hitler had already come close to socialising Germany. "Internally, Germany has a good deal in common with a socialist state." These words were written just before Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union. Orwell believed that Hitler would go down in history as "the man who made the City of London laugh on the wrong side of its face" by forcing financiers to see that planning works and that an economic free-for-all does not.

~ George Watson, "Hitler and the Socialist Dream," Independent, November 22, 1998

Ludwig von Mises on how private property and the free market allows non-conformists to exist

In the political sphere, there is no means for an individual or a small group of individuals to disobey the will of the majority. But in the intellectual field private property makes rebellion possible. The rebel has to pay a price for his independence; there are in this universe no prizes that can be won without sacrifices. But if a man is willing to pay the price, he is free to deviate from the ruling orthodoxy or neo-orthodoxy.

What would conditions have been in the socialist commonwealth for heretics like Kierkegaard, Schopenauer, Veblen, or Freud? For Monet, Courbet, Walt Whitman, Rilke, or Kafka? In all ages, pioneers of new ways of thinking and acting could work only because private property made contempt of the majority's ways possible. Only a few of these separatists were themselves economically independent enough to defy the government into the opinions of the majority. But they found in the climate of the free economy among the public people prepared to aid and support them. What would Marx have done without his patron, the manufacturer Friedrich Engels?

~ Ludwig von Mises, "The Rise of Capitalism," Liberty & Property

Ludwig von Mises on studying economics

People may disagree on the question of whether everybody ought to study economics seriously. But one thing is certain. A man who publicly talks or writes about the opposition between capitalism and socialism without having fully familiarized himself with all that economics has to say about these issues is an irresponsible babbler.

~ Ludwig von Mises

Kevin Duffy on capitalism vs. socialism

capitalism: serving others while serving yourself
socialism: stealing from others while serving yourself, justified by "serving the common good"

capitalism: motivated by improving your lot in life (ambition)
socialism: motivated by bringing others down (envy)

~ Kevin Duffy

Kevin Duffy on having successful CEOs run government agencies

Even if you put the brightest people in charge of government agencies they will fail. Companies serve customers peacefully and voluntarily; their decisions are rationally guided by the price system, making sure resources aren’t wasted. If they lose money for long they close their doors. Government bureaucrats, on the other hand, serve their customers through coercion (taxes). Their decisions are guided by votes and special interest bribes. They spend other peoples’ money, have no price system to guide them, have a limited feedback system (elections with no real choice every 2 years), and are essentially flying blind.

~ Kevin Duffy, December 10, 2010

Lew Rockwell on the free market vs. state planning

One might think that it would be enough for most people to log-on to the World Wide Web, browse any major social-networking site or search engine, and gain direct experience with the results of human freedom. No government agency created Facebook and no government agency manages its day-to-day operation. It is the same with Google. Nor did a bureaucratic agency invent the miracle of the iPhone, or the utopian cornucopia of products available at the Walmart down the street.

Meanwhile, look at what the state gives us. The department of motor vehicles. The post office. Spying on our emails and phone calls. Full-body scans at the airport. Restrictions on water use. The court system. Wars. Taxes. Inflation. Business regulations. Public schools. Social Security. The CIA. And another ten thousand failed programs and bureaucracies, the reputation of which is no good no matter who you talk to.

~ Lew Rockwell, "The Misesian Vision," LewRockwell.com, January 25, 2010

Robert Taft on liberty vs. central planning

After the American Revolution and the French Revolution the whole world became convinced that liberty was the key to progress and happiness for the peoples of the world, and this theory was accepted, even in those countries where there was, in fact, no liberty. People left Europe and came to this country, not so much because of the economic conditions as because they sought a liberty which they could not find at home. But gradually this philosophy has been replaced by the idea that happiness can only be conferred upon the people by the grace of an efficient government. Only the government, it is said, has the expert knowledge necessary for the people's welfare; only the government has the power to carry out the grandiose plans so necessary in a complicated world.

~ Senator Robert Taft, A Foreign Policy for Americans (1951)

Any Rand on conservatives poorly defending capitalism

The liberals are constantly asserting that they represent the future – that they are new, progressive, forward-looking, etc. And they denounce the conservatives as old-fashioned representatives of a dead past. The conservatives conceded and thus helped the liberals to propagate one of today’s most grotesque contradictions. Collectivism and dictatorship – the frozen status society – is offered to us in the name of progress, while capitalism – the only free, dynamic, creative society ever devised – is defended in the name of passivity and stagnation.

The plea to preserve tradition as such appeals to the worst elements in men and rejects the best. It appeals to fear, cowardice, conformity, self doubt, and rejects creativeness, originality, independence, self-reliance. It is an outrageous plea to address to human beings anywhere, but the more outrageous here, in America – the country based on the principle that man must stand on his own feet, lead by his own judgment, and move constantly forward as a productive, creative innovator.

Ayn Rand, "Ayn Rand on the GOP," (video) 1961

Thomas DiLorenzo: "Mises was right and Samuelson was wrong" about central planning

Consider how [Ludwig von] Mises conducted himself compared to "mainstream" economists. I once read through all the back editions of Paul Samuelson's economics textbook for an aticle I wrote for Policy Review in 1987 ("Invasion of the Free Market Textbooks"). Samuelson preached to generations of students that central planning was inevitable, the wave of the future, so that there was no use opposing it. Instead, he advised Americans especially to read his book so that we Americans can become better central planners than the Russians. It all sounded very practical to most people at the time. Just call it "Keyensian fine-tuning" and no one will notice that it is half-assed central planning.

Mises, of course, never budged from his position that rational economic calculation under socialism was an impossibility, and that middle-of-the-road policies would also inevitably lead to socialism. He was right and Samuelson was wrong, even though as late as the 1980s "everyone knew" the opposite was supposedly true.

~ Thomas DiLorenzo, "'Pragmatic' vs. Principled Libertarians," November 12, 2003

Governor William Bradford on how common ownership of property failed at Plymouth Plantation

At last after much debate of things, the governor gave way that they should set corn everyman for his own particular... That had very good success for it made all hands very industrious, so much [more] corn was planted than otherwise would have been ... The experience that has had in this common course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst Godly and sober men, may well evince the Vanities of the conceit of Plato's and other ancients, applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of propertie, and bringing into commone wealth, would make them happy and flourishing, as if they were wiser than God.

~ Governor William Bradford, Of Plimouth Plantation: 1620-1647 (1650)

Pilgrim Tercentenary
Signing of the Compact
1620-1920

Kevin Duffy on the intellectual climate and reasons for optimism

I am a long-term optimist. The failures of central planning are there for all to see. Russians, East Europeans, Chinese, Indians, and perhaps some Latin Americans who stared into the socialist abyss know best. Yet we are blindly traveling down the same road they’re coming from, and delude ourselves that we’re cruising along the free market highway. Fortunately, we’re just 290 million lost souls against billions. (though you should add in Western Europe going down the same path.) To me that’s what’s exciting – we’re no longer the only game in town. There are perhaps a hundred individual experiments taking place, all looking for the capitalistic key. Once they discover not to adopt ALL of the American system (esp. a central bank and “democracy”) the upward push of progress will be unfathomable and unstoppable. Even the U.S. will have no other choice but to follow this model.

The biggest reason for optimism, in my humble opinion, is the intellectual climate. The seeds of socialism/fascism/interventionism were sown in the mid to late 1800s. The battle of ideas took place and the bad guys won. Edward Bellamy wrote the best selling (I believe in 1887) socialist utopia novel Looking Forward. (His cousin, Francis Bellamy, also a socialist, wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892.) A lot of these ideas came from German universities, considered the best in the late 1800s, early 1900s. (The first modern welfare state was Bismarck’s Germany.) An intellectual shift towards socialism preceded the disastrous/murderous 20th century, laying the groundwork for the U.S. Progressive Era (income tax, central bank, end of neutrality in foreign affairs), Soviet socialism, Nazi socialism, etc., etc.

Fast forward the tape to today. Intellectually, socialism is dead from the neck up. Free market principles are much more embraced (though there is still much work to do), especially around the world. The more failures of central planning are revealed (is mortgage market socialism next?) the more this intellectual shift will accelerate. When the current wretched system inevitably fails, the hope is that at least some sound thinking will fill the void. You’re already starting to see this with the failures of Katrina – calls for spending cuts, pork busting on CNBC, defense of gas price gouging by the Cato boys, and even some calls for private roads.

~ Kevin Duffy, Bearing Asset Management, October 10, 2005

Mises on man's fallibility

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Planning For Freedom, p. 44

Mises on accumulating wealth

The desire for an increase of wealth can be satisfied through exchange, which is the only method possible in a capitalist economy, or by violence and petition as in a militarist society, where the strong acquire by force, the weak by petitioning.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, p. 335