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Human society is an association of persons for cooperative action.

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Human labor by itself is not capable of increasing our well-being.

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Now we wish to consider two different systems of human cooperation under the division of labor—one based on private ownership of the means of production, and the other based on communal ownership of the means of production.

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The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production (for in regard to commodities ready for consumption, private ownership is a matter of course and is not disputed even by the socialists and communists). All the other demands of liberalism result from this fundamental demand.

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Side by side with the word “property” in the program of liberalism one may quite appropriately place the words “freedom” and “peace.

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The idea of freedom has become so ingrained in all of us that for a long time no one dared to call it into question.

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Before the rise of liberalism even high-minded philosophers, founders of religions, clerics animated by the best of intentions, and statesmen who genuinely loved their people, viewed the thralldom of a part of the human race as a just, generally useful, and downright beneficial institution.

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What was astonishing was that one could hear these views expressed even by many of the slaves whom one questioned.

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When those who recommended the abolition of involuntary servitude on general humanitarian grounds were told that the retention of the system was also in the interest of the enslaved, they knew of nothing to say in rejoinder.

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There are high-minded men who detest war because it brings death and suffering.

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It is difficult or even impossible to refute this line of reasoning on the part of the advocates of war if the only objection to war that one can think of is that it demands sacrifices.

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The liberal critique of the argument in favor of war is fundamentally different from that of the humanitarians.

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He is convinced that victorious war is an evil even for the victor, that peace is always better than war.

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not as the defender of his homeland, but as the leader of an invading army intent on robbing a peaceful people of its freedom and possessions.

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Civil war destroys the division of labor inasmuch as it compels each group to content itself with the labor of its own adherents.

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If the division of labor is to embrace a whole nation, civil war must lie outside the realm of possibility; if it is to encompass the whole world, lasting peace among nations must be assured.

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