Sunday 3 July 2011

Bitter ironies

The almost uncontested triumph of the egalitarian ideology has entirely obliterated all other political ideals. The envy-driven masses do not care a whit for what the demagogues call the “bourgeois” concern for freedom of conscience, of thought, of the press, for habeas corpus, trial by jury, and all the rest. They long for the earthly paradise which the socialist leaders promise them. Like these leaders, they are convinced that the “liquidation of the bourgeois” will bring them back into the Garden of Eden. The irony is that nowadays they are calling this program the liberal program.

Ludwig von Mises - Theory and History chapter 16 (published 1957) (pic)

2 comments:

James Higham said...

It has to be one of the worst hijackings of a word, after gay.

Trooper Thompson said...

Indeed.