If one considers what enormous sums have been extracted from the nation’s wealth through the failure of publicly managed enterprises and through the failure of the Postal Savings Office, one can pretty well judge how completely different our national finances would be today if the national agenda were restricted to the more limited responsibilities of government. The economic failure of all public enterprises is, however, not a peculiarity of the Austrian government. Public enterprises have failed all over the whole world. The finances of every single European and non-European nation are in as much or greater disorder as the government concerned has gone farther into the field of the management of business enterprises. In view of this fact, it sounds like a mockery that only a few years ago the further expropriation of private enterprises was recommended in all earnestness for the relief of financial distress and that this policy is still looked upon by wide circles as the highest wisdom in financial policy. The real root of all of our finance difficulties lies precisely in the existence of these public enterprises; in order to cover their operational losses the private sector must be taxed enormously.
--Ludwig von Mises, "The Balance Sheet of Economic Policies Hostile to Property," in Between the Two World Wars: Monetary Disorder, Interventionism, Socialism, and the Great Depression, ed. Richard M. Ebeling, vol. 2 of Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002), 238.
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