“I love America. I love the Constitution. I love the First Amendment. I want to carry . . . fucking guns. I love private property. And let me tell something: if you care about your fucking country, read Ludwig von Mises and the Six Lessons of the Austrian Economic School, motherfuckers.”
This rant by Brazilian fighter Renato Moicano, after a UFC victory, Joe Rogan in the ring officiating, went viral this weekend. But what does the fighter mean? What are the “six lessons” that Mises listed? Mises wrote a lot, after all.
A lot more than six lessons!
Turns out, “Money Moicano” is referring to the short book Ludwig von Mises wrote that is entitled, in America, Economic Policy. The book consists of six lectures, which is why, in Brazil, the book is called Six Lessons:
- Capitalism
- Socialism
- Interventionism
- Inflation
- Foreign Investment
- Politics and Ideas
The lessons of each section could be listed like this:
- A country becomes more prosperous in proportion to the rise in the invested capital per unit of its population.
- Economic calculation, and therefore all technological planning, is possible only if there are money prices, not only for consumer goods but also for the factors of production.
- The idea of government interference as a “solution” to economic problems leads, in every country, to conditions which, at the least, are very unsatisfactory and often quite chaotic.
- Inflation is a policy. And a policy can be changed.
- What is lacking in order to make the developing countries as prosperous as the United States is only one thing: capital — and, of course, the freedom to employ it under the discipline of the market and not the discipline of the government.
- Ideas and only ideas can light the darkness. These ideas must be brought to the public in such a way that they persuade people. We must convince them that these ideas are the right ideas and not the wrong ones.
Moicano’s rant has conjured up quite a bit of interest and appreciation:
