… is from page 65 of the 2006 Liberty Fund edition of Ludwig von Mises’s 1956 volume, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality:
Freedom must be granted to all, even to base people, lest the few who can use it for the benefit of mankind be hindered.
DBx: Yes, although Mises misses by describing those who use freedom for the benefit of humankind as “few.” In a free society, they are most people. Everyone who performs honest production in the market, without special privileges granted by the state, uses his or her freedom to benefit not only himself or herself – and not only his or her family – but also countless strangers.
It’s true that some individuals use their freedom to create especially large benefits for strangers. Think of Gustavus Swift, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Sam Walton, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos. But most of us, known only to our families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, also use our freedom to benefit others. Think of the person who picked the cabbage you’ll have for dinner, the clerk at Burger King, the accountant at Home Depot, the receptionist at your dentist’s office, the pilot for FedEx, the pilot for United Airlines, the supervisor at an Amazon warehouse, a maintenance technician at a data center, the security guard at a nearby strip mall…. the full list would be, literally, billions of individuals. Each and every one of these individuals, operating in the market, uses his or her freedom to benefit himself or herself by benefitting others.
…..
Mises was born on this date – September 29th – in 1881.
