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The Cynical Libertarian Society
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The Cynical Libertarian Society
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"The way to eternal peace does not lead through strengthening state and central power, as socialism strives for. The greater the scope the state claims in the life of the individual and the more important politics becomes for him, the more areas of friction are thereby created in territories with mixed population. Limiting state power to a minimum, as liberalism sought, would considerably soften the antagonisms between different nations that live side by side in the same territory. The only true national autonomy is the freedom of the individual against the state and society. The 'statification' of life and of the economy leads with necessity to the struggle of nations."
[While I agree with this, let me clairify something. I am totally in favor of a strong military, for defensive purposes only. Should any invader set foot on my soil, I want to be able to destroy that invader & reduce his home country to a radioactive desert. It is our soldiers, in any other country, for any other reason besides the defense of our soil, that I am opposed to.]
Ludwig von Mises
Nation, State, and Economy (1919)
New York University Press, 1983, pp. 87, 96.
"Market economy and total war are incompatible. In the soldiers' war only the soldiers fight; for the great majority war is only a passing suffering of evil, not an active pursuit. While the armies are combating each other, the citizens, farmers, and workers try to carry on their normal activities.
"The first step which led from the soldiers' war back to total war was the introduction of compulsory military service. It gradually did away with the difference between soldiers and citizens. The war was no longer to be only a matter of mercenaries; it was to include everyone who had the necessary physical ability. The slogan a nation in arms' at first expressed only a program which could not be realized completely for financial reasons. Only part of the able-bodied male population received military training and were placed in the armed, services. But once this road is entered upon it is not possible to stop at halfway measures.
"Eventually the mobilization of the army was bound to absorb even the men indispensable to production at home who had the responsibility of feeding and equipping the combatants. It was found necessary to differentiate between essential and nonessential occupations. The men in occupations essential for supplying the army had to be exempted from induction into the combat troops. For this reason disposition of the available manpower was placed in the hands of the military leaders. [not a bad thing in its self, but...]
"Compulsory military service proposes putting everyone in the army who is able-bodied; only the ailing, the physically unfit, the old, the women, and the children are exempted. But when it is realized that a part of the able-bodied must be used on the industrial front for work which may be performed by the old and the young, the less fit and the women, then there is no reason to differentiate in compulsory service between the able-bodied and the physically unfit.
"Compulsory military service thus leads to compulsory labor service of all citizens who are able to work, male and female. The supreme commander exercises power over the entire nation, he replaces the work of the able-bodied by the work of less fit draftees, and places as many able-bodied at the front as he can spare at home without endangering the supply of the army. The supreme commander then decides what is to be produced and how. He also decides how the products are to be used. Mobilization has become total; the nation and the state have been transformed into an army; war socialism has replaced the market economy."
Interventionism: An Economic Analysis (1940)
by Ludwig von Mises
(Irvington, NY: FEE, 1998)
pp. 69-70
http://www.mises.org/product.asp?sku=B252
"[T]he school is a political prize of the highest importance. It cannot be deprived of its political character as long as it remains a public and compulsory institution. There is, in fact, only one solution: the state, the government, the laws must not in any way concern themselves with schooling or education. Public funds must be not be used for such purposes. The rearing and instruction of youth must be left entirely to parents and to private associations and institutions."
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
Liberalism (1929)
(San Francisco, CA: Cobden Press, 1985), p. 144
Ludwig von Mises
Liberalism (1927)
(Cobden Press, 1985)
p. 58
"At the breakfast table of every citizen in wartime sits an invisible guest, as it were, a GI who shares his meal. Parked in the citizen's garage is not only the family car, but also--invisibly--a tank or a plane. The important fact is that a GI needs more in food, clothing, and other things than he used to consume as a civilian. And military equipment wears out much more quickly than civilian equipment. The costs of a modern war are enormous...
"In his book on Eternal Peace, the German philosophy Immanuel Kant suggested that government should be forbidden to finance wars by borrowing. He expected that the warlike spirit would dwindle if all countries had to pay cash for their wars."
From Ludwig von Mises's remarks before the Conference on the Economics of Mobilization, held at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, April 6-8, 1951, under the sponsorship of the University of Chicago Law School. Reprinted from the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, April 26, 1951, and appearing in Economic Freedom and Interventionism: An Anthology of Articles and Essays by Ludwig von Mises (Irvington-on-Hudson: FEE, 1990) pp. 97-98.
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