Stephen MacLean

“The flowering of human society depends on two factors: the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound social and economic theories, and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority.” ~ Ludwig von Mises, “Human Action”

“When a society is perishing, the wholesome advice to give to those who would restore it is to call it to the principles from which it sprang; for the purpose and perfection of an association is to aim at and to attain that for which it is formed.” ~ Leo XIII. #Lent2025

“Corruption is a regular effect of interventionism.” ~ Ludwig von Mises, “Human Action”

“Virtue is, moreover, the common inheritance of men, equally within the reach of high and low, rich and poor; and that virtue, and virtue alone, wherever found, will be followed by the rewards of everlasting happiness.” ~ Leo XIII. #Lent2025

“Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments.” ~ Ludwig von Mises, “Human Action”

“Life on earth, however good and desirable in itself, is not the final purpose for which man is created; it is only the way and the means to that attainment of truth and that love of goodness in which the full life of the soul consists.” ~ Leo XIII. #Lent2025

“The supremacy of public opinion determines not only the singular role that economics occupies in the complex of thought and knowledge. It determines the whole process of human history.” ~ Ludwig von Mises, “Human Action”

“The limits must be determined by the nature of the occasion which calls for the law’s interference — the principle being that the law must not undertake more, nor proceed further, than is required for the remedy of the evil or the removal of the mischief.” ~ Leo XIII. #Lent2025

“Socialism cannot be realised because it is beyond human power to establish it as a social system. The choice is between capitalism and chaos.” ~ Ludwig von Mises, “Human Action”

“Whenever the general interest or any particular class suffers, or is threatened with harm, which can in no other way be met or prevented, the public authority must step in to deal with it.” ~ Leo XIII. #Lent2025

“A measure suggested by sound economic reasoning results in producing the effects aimed at, and a measure suggested by faulty economic reasoning fails to produce the ends sought.” ~ Ludwig von Mises, “Human Action”

“The community, because the conservation thereof is so emphatically the business of the supreme power, that the safety of the commonwealth is not only the first law, but it is a government’s whole reason of existence.” ~ Leo XIII. #Lent2025

“A protective tax is one which is laid to act as a bar to importation, in order to keep a foreign commodity out. It does not act protectively unless it does act as a bar, and is not a tax on imports but an obstruction to imports.” ~ William Graham Sumner.

“The State must not absorb the individual or the family; both should be allowed free and untrammelled action so far as is consistent with the common good and the interest of others.” ~ Leo XIII. #Lent2025

“Protectionism bars the science of political economy with a dogma, and the only process of the art of statesmanship to which it leads is eternal trial and failure — the process of the alchemist and of the inventor of perpetual motion.” ~ William Graham Sumner.

“The foremost duty . . . of the rulers of the State should be to make sure that the laws and institutions, the general character and administration of the commonwealth, shall be such as of themselves to realise public well-being and private prosperity.” ~ Leo XIII. #Lent2025

“If the dogma which constitutes protectionism — national wealth can be produced by protective taxes and can not be produced without them — is enunciated, instead of going on to a science of political economy based upon it, the science falls dead on the spot.” ~ W.G. Sumner.