From The Saintly And Single-minded Idealist To

To Create Conditions In Which Competition Will Be As Effective As Possible, To Prevent Fraud And Deception, To Break Up Monopolies- These Tasks Provide A Wide And Unquestioned Field For State Activity.

I Am Convinced That If The Market System Were The Result Of Deliberate Human Design, And If The People Guided By The Price Changes Understood That Their Decisions Have Significance Far Beyond Their Immediate Aims, This Mechanism Would Have Been Acclaimed As One Of The Greatest Triumphs Of The Human Mind.

It Is Also True That The Less Possible It Becomes For A Man To Acquire A New Fortune, The More Must The Existing Fortunes Appear As Privileges For Which There Is No Justification. Policy Is Then Certain To Aim At Taking These Fortunes Out Of Private Hands, Either By The Slow Process Of Heavy Taxation Of Inheritance Or By The Quicker One Of Outright Confiscation. A System Based On Private Property And Control Of The Means Of Production Presupposes That Such Property And Control Can Be Acquired By Any Successful Man.

If Democracy Is A Means Rather Than An End, Its Limits Must Be Determined In The Light Of The Purpose We Want It To Serve.

The Discussions Of Every Age Are Filled With The Issues On Which Its Leading Schools Of Thought Differ. But The General Intellectual Atmosphere Of The Time Is Always Determined By The Views On Which The Opposing Schools Agree. They Become The Unspoken Presuppositions Of All Thought, And Common And Unquestioningly Accepted Foundations On Which All Discussion Proceeds.