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Which Came First: The Individual or the Group?

by | Jan 2, 2025 | ,

“It is illusory to believe that it is possible to visualize collective wholes. They are never visible; their cognition is always the outcome of the understanding of the meaning which acting men attribute to their acts. We can see a crowd, i.e., a multitude of people. Whether this crowd is a mere gathering or a mass (in the sense in which this term is used in contemporary psychology) or an organized body or any other kind of social entity is a question which can only be answered by understanding the meaning which they themselves attach to their presence. And this meaning is always the meaning of individuals. Not our senses, but understanding, a mental process, makes us recognize social entities.

“Those who want to start the study of human action from the collective units encounter an insurmountable obstacle in the fact that an individual at the same time can belong and—with the exception of the most primitive tribesmen—really belongs to various collective entities. The problems raised by the multiplicity of coexisting social units and their mutual antagonisms can be solved only by methodological individualism.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

You Apes Want to Live Forever?

by | Jan 1, 2025 |

comfort

The New Orleans incident is just the beginning.

And as always, Boppers, head on a swivel and ready to rock; if you don’t have a rifle in your vehicle, you are overlooking a tool option.

My “Storming America” series on my podcast gives you an in depth appraisal of what this mass attack will look like and what you need to do to prepare (episodes 37, 41-43 and 48-50).

Buckle up and Happy New Year.

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

The Socialist Spirit

by | Jan 1, 2025 | ,

“Of course, not Marxists alone, but most of those who emphatically declare themselves anti-Marxists, think entirely on Marxist lines and have adopted Marx’s arbitrary, unconfirmed and easily refutable dogmas. If and when they come into power, they govern and work entirely in the socialist spirit.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, Preface to 2nd German edition

Production for Profit Is Production for People, part 2

by | Dec 31, 2024 | ,

“In his capacity as a businessman a man is a servant of the consumers, bound to comply with their wishes. He cannot indulge in his own whims and fancies. But his customers’ whims and fancies are for him ultimate law, provided these customers are ready to pay for them. He is under the necessity of adjusting his conduct to the demand of the consumers. If the consumers, without a taste for the beautiful, prefer things ugly and vulgar, he must, contrary to his own convictions, supply them with such things. If consumers do not want to pay a higher price for domestic products than for those produced abroad, he must buy the foreign product, provided it is cheaper. An employer cannot grant favors at the expense of his customers. He cannot pay wage rates higher than those determined by the market if the buyers are not ready to pay proportionately higher prices for commodities produced in plants in which wage rates are higher than in other plants.

“It is different with man in his capacity as spender of his income. He is free to do what he likes best.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Production for Profit Is Production for People

by | Dec 30, 2024 | ,

“Profit and loss can be expressed in definite amounts of money. It is possible to ascertain in terms of money how much an individual has profited or lost. However, this is not a statement about this individual’s psychic profit or loss. It is a statement about a social phenomenon, about the individual’s contribution to the societal effort as it is appraised by the other members of society. It does not tell us anything about the individual’s increase or decrease in satisfaction or happiness. It merely reflects his fellow men’s evaluation of his contribution to social cooperation. This evaluation is ultimately determined by the efforts of every member of society to attain the highest possible psychic profit. It is the resultant of the composite effect of all these people’s subjective and personal value judgments as manifested in their conduct on the market.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

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