QUOTE OF THE DAY

Thanks to Chris Coyne, graduate student extraordinaire at George Mason's Economics department, I give you my quote of the day:

"The immense majority strives after a greater and better supply of food, clothes, homes, and other material amenities. In calling a rise in the masses' standard of living progress and improvement, economists do not espouse a mean materialism. They simply establish the fact that people are motivated by the urge to improve the material conditions of their existence. They judge policies from the point of view of the aims men want to attain. He who disdains the fall in infant mortality and the gradual disappearance of famines and plagues may cast the first stone upon the materialism of economists."

- Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, p. 193

It never ceases to amaze me how those who defend capitalism are quickly labeled as selfish and cruel despite the evidence to the contrary. The difficulty in making discussions focus on the means and not the ends is equally frustrating. I guess it's just too easy to assume the worst intentions of those with whom we disagree.