Getting an early start on my new-year's resolution: To make sure and read stuff that isn't related to school. I'm just finishing up Theory and History by Ludwig von Mises, and came across a quote that I believe sums up the role of Bureaucrash in the freedom movement. We are, after all, "the heralds and disseminators of beneficial ideas," and it's our role to spread these ideas out into the culture in a way that others will take to and understand. If the statists don't hear our message, then it's our methods & our expressions that need to change.
A civilization is the product of a definite world view, and its philosophy manifests itself in each of its accomplishments. The artifacts produced by men may be called material; but the methods resorted to in the arrangement of production activities are mental – the outcome of ideas that determine what should be done and how... [continued] The philosophy that is the characteristic mark of the West, and whose consistent elaboration has in the last centuries transformed all social institutions has been called individualism. It maintains that the ideas – the good ones as well as the bad – originate in the minds of an individual man. Only a few men are endowed with the capacity to conceive new ideas. But as political ideas can only work if they are accepted by society, it rests with the crowd of those who themselves are unable to develop new ways of thinking to approve or disapprove the innovations of the pioneers. There is no guarantee that these masses of followers will make wise use of the power vested in them. They may reject the good ideas – those whose adoption would benefit them – and espouse the bad ideas that will seriously hurt them. But if they choose what is worse, the fault is not theirs alone. It is no less the fault of the pioneers of the good causes in not having succeeded in bringing forward their thoughts in a more convincing form. The favorable evolution of human affairs depends ultimately on the ability of the human race to beget not only authors, but also heralds and disseminators of beneficial ideas.
A civilization is the product of a definite world view, and its philosophy manifests itself in each of its accomplishments. The artifacts produced by men may be called material; but the methods resorted to in the arrangement of production activities are mental – the outcome of ideas that determine what should be done and how... [continued]
The philosophy that is the characteristic mark of the West, and whose consistent elaboration has in the last centuries transformed all social institutions has been called individualism. It maintains that the ideas – the good ones as well as the bad – originate in the minds of an individual man. Only a few men are endowed with the capacity to conceive new ideas. But as political ideas can only work if they are accepted by society, it rests with the crowd of those who themselves are unable to develop new ways of thinking to approve or disapprove the innovations of the pioneers.
There is no guarantee that these masses of followers will make wise use of the power vested in them. They may reject the good ideas – those whose adoption would benefit them – and espouse the bad ideas that will seriously hurt them. But if they choose what is worse, the fault is not theirs alone. It is no less the fault of the pioneers of the good causes in not having succeeded in bringing forward their thoughts in a more convincing form. The favorable evolution of human affairs depends ultimately on the ability of the human race to beget not only authors, but also heralds and disseminators of beneficial ideas.
Very inspiring....
It reminded me of other inspiring paragraphs which one often stumbles upon when reading other greats and so on. I am always inspired by reading chapter 4 from The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt, a chapter titled : Reflections at 70
Speech he gave in presence of mises and other friends.
And this little paragraph is also one of my favs this time from George Reisman's big Capitalism book:
" The solution to the present problem of massive, overwhelming poverty is nothing other than the science of economics. As should be increasingly clear, economics is a science which can make possible the construction of a social and political system in which human success is a feature of normal everyday life everywhere. It is truly the humanitarian science, and only those who have studied it well and who are prepared to implement its teachings deserve to be called friends of mankind. The most important charity that true friends of mankind can pursue is to disseminate knowledge of this vital subject as widely and as deeply as they know how."
