Austrian economics in five minutes

Without property rights, there cannot be a free market in the exchange of goods and services.

Without a free market, without a willing buyer and a willing seller, it is IMPOSSIBLE to know the real price of anything.

Without the price, it is IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to make the necessary economic calculation, that is to know when the inputs to an activity (labor or raw materials) costs more or less than the output of an activity (the value of the thing produced or service performed).

Without the economic calculation, it is IMPOSSIBLE for an economic activity to make a profit and thus be sustainable. Conversely, it is IMPOSSIBLE for an unprofitable economic activity to be sustainable.

Without profit, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have resources from which to feed, clothe and house those who are involved in the activity.

Without profit, it is IMPOSSIBLE, to have excess resources to set aside in the form of savings.

Without savings, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have capital to invest in new economic activities.

Without the ability to have property rights to those savings, it is IMPOSSIBLE to evaluate all of the other possible economic activities to find the ones that carries the least risk when compared to their anticipated return, and to properly allocate savings to the most promising investments.

Without new economic activity and without the ability for others to invest as it suits the saver, the economy cannot have the opportunity nor the resources with which to adapt to changing circumstances, let alone to provide jobs and resources for the next generation.

Without honest money, government is free to destroy the very means of accounting for, saving and exchanging wealth. Without the assurance that money will retain its value, people will not save but instead will either consume excess wealth or will store it in forms like fixed assets that preclude investment in new economic activity.

In other words, without property rights, a free market, price information that allows economic calculation of profit, the ability to save with the assurance those savings are free to be invested when and where the saver sees fit, and without honest money, a sustainable economy is IMPOSSIBLE.

Without a sustainable economy, it is IMPOSSIBLE for humans enjoy any level of prosperity. This is exactly the reason that North Koreans are reduced to foraging for bark and grass to fill their empty stomachs. Their government forbids property rights, forbids a free market, destroys price information, confiscates savings, forbids investment and has no economic growth.

Liberty, property, profit, investment, capital and honest money are the only means of creating a sustainable economy. All other ways have been tried and have failed utterly. Yet, somehow, property rights, profit, capital and honest money are still considered to be evil, particularly in the thinking of people still yearning for the perfect socialist Utopia. Socialism is in reality the economy of death.